Seeds planted by Aragon Elastomers LLC during the past two years are beginning to sprout, allowing the company to move into new markets.
The custom molder and urethane products maker's founder and president, Charles Demarest, said the Louisville, Colo., business has branched out into areas including elastomer foam and thermoplastic urethane offerings.
``Our product line only consists of a few products - inline skate wheels, skateboard wheels - and we moved out into custom molding'' two years ago, he said. The move set the stage for the firm to expand further by creating new formulations for a variety of applications.
``I'm not interested in going into existing markets but, rather, developing new products for new markets,'' he said at the recent Polyurethane Manufacturers Association meeting in Atlanta.
He would not describe the new goods, principally because Aragon is developing the products for other companies.
Aragon can do injection, cast, compression and centrifugal molding, he said. Demarest said the 5-year-old firm is especially adaptable when customers are looking for elastomer foam with specific density properties.
The firm's Prime-brand wheel line remains its No. 1 product, but custom work is making solid inroads, he said.
``At the moment we have more business than we expected,'' Demarest said. Aragon has three injection and two centrifugal molding machines, and he said he does not anticipate adding equipment this year. Aragon employs 12 at its 17,000-square-foot plant.
``We're at the end stage of being a startup company, and I think we can triple sales without adding anything else,'' he said. ``That's because we took the next step and branched out.''
