The small North Idaho city of Rathdrum—population 6,500—is a long ways from San Francisco, both geographically and in terms of size. But northern California's Bay Area is where one of Rathdrum's current and growing manufacturers began operating 20 years ago last month, and that transplant company still bears the name to prove it.

The concern, Bay Shore Systems Inc., located in a 22,000-square-foot facility at 14206 N. Ohio St., manufactures foundation drilling equipment such as excavator-mounted drills for construction of the foundation of homes and other buildings, it says.

Bay Shore, which currently employs 55 people, says it has experienced rapid growth in recent years.

Foundation drilling involves drilling a hole of a specified depth and diameter, placing some type of configuration of rebar in the hole, and then filling it with concrete. Bay Shore's customers provide foundations for a wide variety of clients.

Bay Shore's drills range in price from $130,000 to $450,000, and can provide between 10,000 foot-pounds and 110,000 foot-pounds of torque.

The drills are used mostly at commercial construction sites, but also at residential sites. Specialty contractors buy most of the drills, but general contractors are also customers.

"Infrastructure is certainly a major portion of our business," says Jim Tippett, Bay Shore's general manager. Those orders come from contractors involved in building roads, bridges, sound walls, and power transmission lines.

Bay Shore's product line is geared toward helping its customers drill in challenging situations, such as on rugged terrain or steep slopes, reach over walls or other obstacles, or do work in areas where there are low-hanging obstructions, the company says.

It makes its drills to fit a customer's excavator of choice, and manufactures drilling devices called tie-back attachments, for drilling into high berms and side walls.

The foundation drill manufacturing company was founded in the San Francisco Bay-area city of Benicia in November 1978, by Herb Minatre, who is now 61 years old and mostly retired. Minatre and his wife, Paulette, own the company.

Their son, Adam Minatre, Bay Shore System's vice president, says the company moved to Rathdrum from Benicia in 1996 for primarily one reason, and it has worked out great.

"We tried to stay in California, but they did not want a manufacturer like us," he says. "Idaho, on the other hand, did. We have no regrets at all about this move. Spokane supplies almost everything we need for business, including almost half of our work force."

He says the company searched around the country for a new home, eventually picking Rathdrum and building an 18,000-square-foot facility there that it later expanded to its current size.

Since arriving, the company has gone from producing 12 drills in its first year in Idaho to 53 this year, Minatre says. He envisions growing to annual production of 80 machines in the near future.

The company's sales have climbed rapidly over the last five years, jumping from about $6 million in 2004 to more than $15 million in 2008, Minatre says. Bay Shore has more than quadrupled its work force from the 12 employees it had when it moved here, he says.

Tippett says the company was built around its popular LoDril, its flagship product. The company shipped its 400th drill overall in June, and the 400th LoDril will be shipped this month, Tippett says. "So you can see it is mostly LoDrils."

Bay Shore says on its Web site that its LoDril product allows customers to drill deep in low-overhead, limited-access locations, "providing a distinct advantage to LoDril customers doing work under power lines, bridges, overpasses, or other low-clearance job sites."

Tippett says Bay Shore believes its LoDrils compare favorably with competitors' excavator-mounted drills because they are shorter in height, while still being able to go deep, giving LoDril customers increased versatility and maneuverability.

For example, Tippett says, a LoDril drilling attachment of about 20 feet in height could drill down 80 feet, while a competitor would need a 65-foot-tall drilling attachment to reach a similar depth.

In June, however, Bay Shore's 20-year patent on the LoDril expired, Tippett says.

Minatre says it was a "leak-free" patent. "The patent attorney did an excellent job to where you could not make anything that remotely looked like a LoDril without infringing on the patent."

Tippet adds, "To date the impact has been superficial. However, it opens the doors for companies to copy the machine without consequences. Fortunately we have the 'Kleenex' (type brand recognition) of the industry along with the quality, service, and reliability to back it up."

Tippett says Bay Shore has two direct competitors in the U.S., one in Ohio and the other in Texas. There's also one in Europe, he says.

The company's top market is California, Tippett says, where roughly 25 percent to 30 percent of the drills the company has made are put to work in the field.

The demand for foundation drilling is high in areas with seismic activity, such as the large West Coast state, he says.

The company's second biggest market is the Puget Sound area, where about 10 percent of the machines the company has built are in action. Texas is close to that size, accounting for nearly 10 percent of units sold.

The company also has drills at work in Mexico and Canada, and in some remote corners of the world, including Russia, India, Australia, and New Zealand, Tippett says.

Looking into the future, Bay Shore plans on building some rigs larger than its line of LoDrils, going after a segment of the market that currently is dominated by overseas manufacturers, Tippett says.

"The industry has grown to appreciate products made in the U.S.A., and that has expanded our product line over the years as the bulk of the (larger drilling) equipment is manufactured in Europe," Tippett says. "Just as in the past, when a customer demand comes along we try our best to fill that void."

Last winter, Bay Shore had outgrown its capacity, considering the size of its Rathdrum facility and its single production shift, so it began looking at options such as developing a new facility, adding space or a second production shift, or outsourcing some work, Tippett says.

"Considering the physical size of one of our non-LoDril product lines, some new business potential outside the foundation (drilling) industry, and the number of specialty projects in the pipeline, we were really leaning toward a new facility," he says.

Unsure about the outlook for increasing business this year, though, it decided to add a 2 p.m.-to-10 p.m. shift, which it did in January, hiring five more employees, and to outsource some production.

Bay Shore still would like to expand its current facility, or build a larger one at some point, but for now those plans are on hold, especially with the cool overall economy, Tippett says.

"We were apprehensive about starting another shift," he says. The company's concerns, he says, "were centered around a lack of engineering support at night for the specialty equipment."

Perhaps the greatest advantage of the second shift has been Bay Shore's ability to turn around emergency orders of parts by customers whose drills have broken down at job sites, Tippett says.

"As it turns out, the night shift has been a great benefit to Bay Shore, its customers, and employees."