What is innovation?
Creating new things that are usually functional
Hot today because businesses figured out they can’t sit around and innovate once and live off it because competitors won’t allow them to
Requires continuous innovation
Stimulated by the Web because we all monitor each other’s products more closely
SOURCE: Timothy Heath, Miami University professor of marketing who studies creativity and innovation
Mar-Flex Waterproofing & Building Products
What: makes commercial, residential and concrete building products, building equipment and contractor supplies
Where: 6866 Chrisman Lane, Madison Twp.
Chief Executive Officer: Brett Oakley
Info: (513) 422-7285 or www.mar-flex.com
Editor’s note: In his 2011 State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama challenged Americans to be more innovative than the rest of the world. He called innovation the first step to winning the future. This is the first in a monthly series of stories that examines innovative companies and organizations in Butler County and the products and services they provide.
MADISON TWP. — One local company is turning trash into cash by developing a new line of eco-friendly products made from 100 percent recycled materials.
Mar-Flex Building Solutions recently unveiled its new “green initiative,” which commits the company to making only building products that contain 25- to 100-percent recycled material. Current building industry standards say 10 percent recycled content qualifies a product as “green,” but Mar-Flex CEO Brett Oakley said that’s not enough.
“We have got to figure out how to reduce our carbon footprint or the next generation’s in trouble,” Oakley said. “Problem is, we’re already 50 years behind because everybody always follows the easy road, instead of the hard road.”
Oakley started Madison Twp.-based Mar-Flex in 1984, making products for putting roofs on houses and later making products for building basements and foundations. Mar-Flex today is a multi-million dollar business with 14 employees and up to 100 different contractors manufacturing sealants, liquid membranes, crack injections, landscape wells, spray equipment and other building products for residential and commercial construction contractors.
He said the company has built a full line of products in the past three years. The hardest push has been a new line of green products.
“We’ve started taking it on one-on-one to say, how do we hit the challenge? How do we start moving away from the crude product? How do we help ourself gradually on becoming a green sustainability company that we can take to the next level?” Oakley said.
The first green product from Mar-Flex was Shockwave in 2007, a crushproof drain board made to take 42,000 pounds of pressure, fit closer together and protect the concrete. Shockwave consists of grounded scrap from car seats and dashboards in automobiles, heated to 350 degrees to hold it together and laminated with a silk protection cloth to filter dirt, he said. It’s the only drainage board in the world made 100 percent of recycled material used in building foundations, landfill filtration and under artificial turf of sports fields to drain water, he said.
The World of Concrete in 2007 named Shockwave the most innovative product of the Las Vegas trade show.
Other green products Mar-Flex makes include an air barrier, a 35 percent green acrylic spray used to coat buildings to keep moisture and air in and be more energy efficient; GEO Mat, a 100-percent recycled dimpled drain board made with plastic bottles; waterproofing membrane made of by-products from oil and solvents; and Vortex, the most recently developed green product.
A wall ranges in thickness. Because of that, Oakley said there are six size vents to go in walls by the industry standard. Vortex is a vent made 25 percent of recycled plastic that fits all six wall sizes by sliding in and out to expand.
Vortex was released two years ago and now Mar-Flex is working to develop a green crack injection product, Oakley said.
The biggest challenge has been creating awareness of the products, he said.
Justin Bazella was already a Mar-Flex customer when the company developed Shockwave. The Bazella Group is a concrete and waterproofing contractor in Allentown, Pa.
In construction, an architect plans out all the supplies to be used ahead of time, which means if the architect has never heard of Shockwave, they’re not going to plan to use it. Bazella said he has to sell it.
“Being that no one knows about it, but it’s 100 percent recycled, that’s helped us get work,” Bazella said.
Commercial contractors of Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design certified buildings, better known as LEED certified, might use Shockwave because it’s a green product. It helps earn points for the certification, Bazella said.
Mar-Flex launches a new website April 22 for promotion by timing it with Earth Day. Oakley also is looking for a new location in the Franklin or Carlisle area. He said he bought a 15,000-square-foot temporary manufacturing and warehouse space in Carlisle, 200 Industry Drive, while he looks for 30,000- to 45,000-square-feet to buy.
A fire in January destroyed Mar-Flex’s warehouse on Chrisman Lane.
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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