Winter 2002

Seattle Lighthouse Says "Just do it!"

Mary Helen Scheiber prepares Nike water bottle grips for shipping.

The Seattle Lighthouse injection mold shop recently began manufacturing a plastic side panel used for a Nike water bottle. "Premier Plastics in Tacoma has been making a water bottle for Nike," explains Seattle Lighthouse Director of Manufacturing Don Helsel, "but they didn't have the capacity to make the plastic grips for the sides of the bottle." Premier had been purchasing the injection molded side panels from another local company. When that firm went out of business, Premier was left without a supplier. "We've worked with Premier for a long time. They knew we were looking for more work, so they checked with us to find out if we could pick up the contract," says Don.

Although extremely interested in producing grips for the Nike water bottle, we first had to replace a 20-year-old injection mold machine. "Premier was talking to us about the contract, and let us know that their former supplier was selling off their equipment. We had to act fast," Don continues. Bidding at an auction, Lighthouse staff procured the state-of-the-art injection mold machine, allowing us to pick up the contract. "We've just received an order for another couple hundred thousand units. We bought the $200,000 machine from the former supplier for $100,000, and now blind people are doing the work," Don reports.

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