Nadia Kifyak and Russ Monk, managers at WaterShed, Inc., try on new medical gowns that their company has recently begun producing in response to the shortage of personal protective equipment. (Caleb Wolf/Salem Reporter)
Russ Monk said his manufacturing company’s claim to fame is a military technology invented in Salem that helps keep troops alive.
The U.S. Army had asked the company, High Impact Technology, to armor fuel tankers since they could be targeted with gunfire, so Monk pitched a self-healing coating to cover tankers that would seal bullet holes and avoid losing fuel. They loved the idea.
Three days later, the army’s head engineer was on the company’s doorstep in Salem. “We actually had three days to make a working prototype off a crazy idea. It was ugly, but it worked,” said Monk, director of operations for High Impact Technology, at a Salem City Club meeting Friday.
The technology was approved for military use by that weekend, and three weeks later, Monk said they were in Kuwait setting up a factory to take tankers coming in and out of Iraq to apply the coating.
Monk said that approach – producing needed items where they’ll be used – allowed his other company, Salem-based WaterShed Inc., to continue supplying medical gowns to Salem Hospital, Santiam Hospital and Samaritan Health Group after supplies dried out nationally in spring 2020.
“We ended up inventing our own fabric to be able to continue making those,” he said.
Monk, who has lived in Salem for over 50 years, said mapping out the different capabilities in a region is critical to protecting its residents. WaterShed joined a local network dedicated to doing so, manufacturing gowns while other organizations made masks and other equipment.
“Those kinds of conversations should happen before the mayhem, not during,” he said of being able to provide hospitals equipment when international suppliers start running out of raw materials.
“I never want us to be behind the power curve of that again,” he said. “It’s not fair to the nurses and doctors and the firemen and the ambulance drivers and things like that, everybody that uses this material. It’s disrespectful on a statewide level not to have that capability, and so we will not let that capability go away, even if we just keep it on a simmer as needed.”
Erik Andersson, president of the Strategic Economic Development Organization, said they wanted to help WaterShed and other businesses retool their operations at the start of the pandemic to produce PPE.
They created an online database of nearly 20 regional PPE manufacturers to help promote their products and get them informed on obtaining state funds and emergency management.
“It was a lot of things happening all at one time and we really felt that there were some information assistance needed,” Andersson said at the city club meeting. “We were very pleased to be able to get those businesses together as well as connect them with some of the state resources to help them out.”
(Courtesy/Spire Management)
When asked what technologies he would like to see in the next five years, Monk said he wants the Salem area to become “the micro shelter maker of the universe.”
After the Santiam Canyon Wildfires in 2020, High Impact Technology made crates with about 40-by-48-inch pallets and 80’’ tall with enough supplies for eight people for two weeks. A large black bag on the outside is a military tent that allows the shelter to be popped up immediately.
“We’re starting down that path with the systems we’re making and I want to be able to cultivate that and literally cookie cut it all over the area. But if we could shift the greater northwest from Salem, that’s one of my goals,” Monk said.
The Friday meeting was the first of a two-part series, “Lessons Learned from Local Manufacturers: It Pays to Be Nimble.” Part two is scheduled for Feb. 18, and registration is available on the city club’s website.
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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