SOUTH SIOUX CITY - Lite-Form Technologies' business is booming in all directions.
The company, which began 20 years ago marketing components invented by CEO Pat Boeshart for the insulating concrete form, or ICF, industry, is expanding its product line and services, expanding its markets and adding onto its headquarters and workforce.
The explosive growth is born of the accelerating interest in Lite-Form's efficient method of pouring vertical concrete walls using lightweight plastic struts and sheets of rigid polystyrene plastic for forms. Unlike plywood forms, the ICFs remain in place, insulating the building and adding energy efficiency to the strength and durability of concrete.
Boeshart has developed new product lines since the original Lite-Form. In 1998, he created another ICF system, called Fold-Form. It's a preassembled block system of forms and is the most costly of Lite-Form's products.
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The company has joined with Owens Corning to market Fold-Form. The forms are Owens-Corning's trademark "insulation pink" and are promoted using the Pink Panther cartoon character under license from United Artists. The forms are manufactured in three places in the United States and are sold under the Owens Corning name.
The newest product line is the Lite-Deck system, added in 2000. It uses the unique forms to pour load-bearing floors, roofs and decking for commercial or heavy industrial use. Wayne Fenton, the company's business manager, said they have recently begun using the Lite-Deck forms to pour side-cast, tilt-up walls right on construction sites. The process can be done on demand and does away with having to order precast walls far in advance and truck them in. The tilt-up walls can be given decorative finish and the forms reused, rather than being left in place.
"We compete with precast very favorably," Fenton said.
Marketed 'everywhere'
The growth in the ICF industry has been rapid, especially in the past five years, as use of the forms has expanded from basements to the upper floors and roofs of homes and commercial buildings. Lite-Form, which once only marketed its product, is gearing up now to manufacture the forms and spacers and license the machinery used to make them.
Already, Lite-Form is sold in every state in the United States through a network of dealers and lumber yards, and in Canada through retail and specialty outlets, Fenton said. Lite-Form also has "a serious presence" in China, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Japan and Mexico. "And we have prospects, and have sold some, in Australia and New Zealand," he said. "They're investigating it." Machinery has already been shipped to South Africa.
Fenton said the company makes good international contacts at two major trade shows, the International Home Builders show in Orlando, Fla., and the World of Concrete show in Las Vegas.
He noted that the company will be licensing the product and manufacturing equipment in the United States, mostly in the Northwest so far, and Canada, not only overseas.
He said the Midwest regional market is 20 years old and "pretty mature," but Lite-Form is beginning to generate interest in the South and Southwest, too. He said for homes, the technology is adaptable to many architectural styles and can be finished with traditional materials on the outside and Sheetrock walls on the inside, making it undistinguishable from other homes on the block.
Lite-Form's insulating properties make it attractive in both warm and cold climates. The 4-hurricane pummeling sustained by Florida last fall has sparked interest in that state, even for use in house roofs. A traditional roof can be built over the concrete.
"They're very, very quiet. They're very, very energy efficient and they're very, very strong," Boeshart said of the homes. "This concept applies to every home and every commercial building in the world. ... Concrete is everywhere. Everywhere." Boeshart said typical stick-built houses last about 40 years; Concrete homes could last 300 years or more.
Headquarters on the grow
The growth in product offerings and the move to manufacturing has forced the company to expand its headquarters, too.
The corporate headquarters - already a showroom, research center and training center for distributors, contractors and do-it-yourselfers - will soon be home to a manufacturing plant and the machinery for training others to make the forms.
The polystyrene sheets and polypropylene spacers, previously contracted out, will now be made in South Sioux City.
The company is putting $1 million into the 22,000-square-foot expansion. About half the work is finished and the rest is in progress. The construction and machinery installation is scheduled for completion in June or July.
The growth means Lite-Form will add another 10 people to its roughly 30-person payroll. The project garnered a $235,000 Community Development Block Grant for purchasing the manufacturing equipment. Gov. Dave Heineman delivered the check himself in January, praising the local company's expansion.
