F.O. Berg Co., best known as a longtime Spokane sign and awning maker, has spun off a 4-year-old environmental division into a new company named Flexible Containment Products (FCP).


Craig Dolsby, who owns F.O. Berg with Andy Barrett, is general manager of FCP, which will have the same ownership as F.O. Berg.


The environmental products F.O. Berg makes are so different from everything else that we do, Barrett says. This will help us focus on the entire environmental industry.


FCP manufactures what are called secondary-containment products, which help prevent environmental disasters, and products that are used to clean land and water bodies after toxic accidents and oil spills occur. Oil-containment booms, which are floating tube-shaped barriers used to contain oil spills in water, and a new product called a Sea Slug, a floating container into which 10,000 to 20,000 gallons of oil can be pumped, both are for use after an environmental accident. An example of the companys secondary-containment products are its emergency-spill-response berms, which are put under vehicles to catch and contain oil and other environmentally hazardous fluids. The berms, which look like fabric cake pans, can be as small as one square foot or as large as 10,000 square feet in size, Barrett says.


Barrett projects F.O. Bergs overall revenues will be about $4.5 million this year, which would be up about 30 percent from last year, he says. He projects sales for FCP to be $1.5 million in 2003 and for that companys revenues to grow by 25 percent a year for the next five years.


F.O. Berg employs 40 people, which is 10 more than it employed last spring. Barrett says he expects the companys work force to grow to 50 within the next year. Five of those new positions are expected in the FCP division, which now employs 15 people, he says.


He attributes the strong growth projections to increased overseas demand for environmental products.


FCPs largest client is the U.S. government, but foreign countries and companies based overseas, which now account for 30 percent of FCPs sales, have an increased demand for environmental-containment products, Barrett says. European countries are tightening environmental-protection regulations on businesses in light of last years disastrous oil spill off the coast of Spain, so demand for FCPs products is growing, he says. Crews used an F.O. Berg oil boom to help clean up that spill, Barrett says. Many European laws focus on prevention of environmental disasters, so FCPs line of secondary-containment products is growing in popularity there, he says.


Asian countries, which historically have imposed few environmental-protection laws, recently began issuing such regulations, so demand from that market also could grow, he says.


Barrett says he expects sales of FCPs environmental products to the U.S. government to be even with last years.


F.O. Berg operates a sign-and-awning division, which makes commercial signs and awnings and residential awnings and solar shades, and a contract-sewing division, which makes tents, bags, tarps, and equipment covers. When the company opened here in 1883, it made tents, sleeping bags, and other products, including coats for chickens to keep them warm during the winter, Barrett says.


F.O. Berg began making environmental-protection products five years ago, when a Seattle-based company called Foss Environmental Services Co. asked it to manufacture its berms and booms. F.O. Berg began manufacturing similar products for other companies, and in four years its environmental-products division grew to account for 30 percent of its overall sales, Barrett says.


F.O. Berg is located in a 30,000-square-foot facility it owns at 16124 E. Euclid in the Spokane Valley, and FCP also will continue to operate from that location.