Omega Pacific Inc., the Airway Heights-based maker of climbing, rescue, and safety equipment, has resumed its efforts to reach the summit, one year after a court ruling left it dangling without a work force.


Through what was previously called the Washington state Department of Corrections Class I Corrections Industries Programs, Omega Pacific had been one of a few manufacturers whose production functions had been inside the Airway Heights Correctional Center and that employed prisoners at market-rate pay. The Washington state Supreme Court ruled last August, however, that the program was unconstitutional, and Omega Pacific and other such manufacturers were given three weeks to find a nonprisoner work force and three months to move outside the prison walls.


Its taken us one year to recover and to have an experienced, capable work force producing at the production rates we were at before, says Omega Pacific President Bert Atwater, whose 21-year-old company moved all of its operations to a 40,000-square-foot facility at 11427 W. 21st. Last month, we had our best production month of the year.


Omega Pacific makes carabiners, which are oblong metal rings with a gate through which a rope or other climbing apparatus can be threaded, and link cams, which are placed in rock cracks as temporary anchors when climbing. The company also assembles mountain axes and other climbing tools.


During its transition to a nonprison work force, the company has remained profitable, Atwater says. In addition, says Michael Lane, the companys sales and marketing director, the company is on track to increase its sales this year by 6 percent compared with 2004, when its sales surged by almost 20 percent. The company declines to disclose its annual revenues.


The company has held steady at 60 employees, the same number it had when it operated at the prison. Atwater says the company struggled at first to find workers who were as productive as those it employed in the prison, but now feels it has a strong, productive group working there.


Its current work force includes four new, old employees, as Lane describes thempeople who had worked for Omega Pacific in the prison and have been rehired by the company after being released on parole.


I would hire many of them if they are paroled, Atwater says.


Lane says this years growth at Omega Pacific is occurring due to increased sales in established lines, plus the roll-out of the companys military and tactical climbing line earlier this year. The company had sold its goods to military and tactical customers for a number of years, but recently introduced lines designed specifically for such stealth operations.


Lane says the products essentially are the same as those used in the climbing and rescue markets, but the colors are dulled to blend well with the environment in which theyre used.


Its a niche, but definitely one that were giving a lot of attention, he says.


The military-and-tactical line is the companys third main line of products, joining the recreational and rescue and industrial-safety lines.


Lane says the recreational products account for about 40 percent of the companys sales, and rescue and safety accounts for about 20 percent. While the military and tactical line is new, customers in those fields already accounted for about 15 percent of the companys revenues.


The balance of the companys revenues stem from a number of niche markets, Lane says. Those include tree-trimming businesses, river sports, and sailing. Also, he says, the company makes a proprietary carabiner it developed with Honda thats used to hold the back seat in place in the Honda Element sports-utility vehicle.


The primary difference between the products Omega Pacific makes for the recreational market and those used in safety, rescue, and military applications is that recreational products are made of aluminum, while the others are steel.


Lane says recreational users want products that are lightweight and easier to carry when theyre climbing. In the other market, the equipment often is relied upon to hold more than one person; for example, a rescuer might use a carabiner or two to connect a rescue sled holding an injured person to a rope used to hoist the sled.


Whats fundamentally misuse, the steel will handle that much better, Lane says.


Most of the products in all lines are sold through specialty dealers and distributors and through retail stores under the Omega Pacific brand, though Lane says the company also makes private-label products for five other companies whose names he declines to disclose.


In addition, Omega Pacific sells its products online, but Lane says those sales are a very small portion of the companys overall revenues.


The vast majority of the products Omega Pacific makes are carabiners, Lane says. In the manufacturing process, the company starts with large rolls of raw materials and uses its proprietary dies and a cold-metal fusion process to shape the products, coming up with a completed carabiner frame, without the gate, in four steps. Lane asserts that most of the companys competitors take two or three additional steps to complete a frame.


After the frames are completed, they go through a series of finishing steps to make them smooth and to add colors if necessary. Gates then are attached to the frames, and the carabiners are tested.


The company is in the process of automating parts of its manufacturing process. This summer, the company added a robotic device to test the strength of each carabiner.


Lane says the company currently is looking into other ways to automate its manufacturing operations.


Founded in 1984, Omega Pacific started in the Seattle area, and Atwater bought it in 1990. A few years later, he decided to move the company to Eastern Washington. He says he learned of the prison work-force program after deciding to move inland.


The company has been in Airway Heights since 1995.