not sure where to start? click here.

Tex Tech: Reinventing itself through Innovation

MTI Awards: 6 Seed Grants, SBIR

At Tex Tech, there is no shortage of ideas. Big ones. Good ones. After all, this is a company that has survived since the late 1800s, adapting and thriving over the years to meet the market. While countless other textile manufacturing companies in New England have closed up shop, Tex Tech has gone back to the drawing board to develop new ideas, helping the company move forward. Nearly a century ago, it was pro baseball uniforms. Today, Tex Tech produces specialty fibers and fabrics - mainly used for security and safety related products - and is the world’s leading producer of tennis ball felt. “It’s impressive we’ve been able to compete in textiles at an international level,” says Stan Farrell, a project engineer at the company. “How we’ve been able to do that is by diversifying into higher quality products.

While most textile companies in New England have closed, Tex Tech has evolved its new markets.” The company’s current client list includes Boeing, the U.S. Department of Defense, Penn and Wilson. And, the little company that started in a rural community in Maine now has factories in Thailand and China and offices around the country.

Over the past five years, MTI funding has helped Tex Tech accelerate their product development and translate their advanced textiles to high value markets: ballistic protection, fire resistant materials. The company has received seven research and development grants from MTI totaling more than $67,000. In turn, the seed funds have attracted more grant funding. For example, one of the $10,000 MTI awards Tex Tech received led to $750,000 in Small Business and Innovation Research funding from the Department of Defense for ballistics research.

Now, in addition to enhancing the performance of some of the best tennis players in the world, Tex Tech products play an important role in safeguarding military personnel who serve on the front lines. The company produces a needled woven/nonwoven fabric used in bulletproof vests and fabrics used in fire protection materials. Tennis ball felt may seem like an odd pairing with ballistics fabrics and flame protection products, but Farrell says manufacturing the felt is just as high tech. “Many people outside the business have a hard time believing it’s so hard to make tennis ball felt,” he admits. He then explains the process Tex Tech workers go through to transform raw fiber into rolls upon rolls of flawless felt. When you provide the look and feel for the world’s best selling tennis balls, the product has to be perfect. There is the needling, the washing, the dying, and the napping.

Tex Tech continues to expand its market share, and the company’s growth isn’t expected to slow down any time soon. Concerns about terrorism have led to new opportunities in the security market. In the last year alone, the company has been awarded $4 million for ballistics protection fabric research, $1 million contract for work with University of Maine on photovoltaic textiles and $130, 000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Army for work on ballistic protection material for tents. Tex Tech continues to innovate and is researching how it can use its performance fabrics to enhance cockpit door and crew area security for commercial airlines. The company also has a designed fabricated component section, which makes components for other companies, for example wiper felts and cleaning pads for Canon, from Tex Tech’s roll goods. “The vertical integration is becoming more important for Tex Tech by allowing us to provide more value added products for our customers,” Farrell explains. “Thanks to MTI, Farrell continues, “we’ve been able to successfully enter into new markets. Its grant funding has helped us transform ideas into tangible, marketable products.”

 

Tex Tech Industries, Inc.
Corporate Headquarters
One City Center, 11th Floor
Portland, ME 04101
207-756-8606

Tex Tech Industries, Inc.
P.O. Box 8, Main Street
North Monmouth, ME 04265
207-933-4404

www.textechindustries.com

Innovators in the News

rss feed

MTI News

rss feed

MTI Blog

rss feed