Calvert Technologies Inc., the West Plains automated-systems integrator and manufacturer, has slashed its work force, cut other overhead expenses, and set up a creditor payoff plan to overcome recent financial woes.


George C. Calvert, the companys CEO, couldnt be reached for comment on the companys difficulties. However, in a recent letter to creditors received by the Journal of Business, he said, We know that CTI can be a viable company again.


Calvert said in the letter that the 28-year-old company grew too rapidly after buying an electronic jail systems division from Telect Inc., of Liberty Lake, in November 1998, and then lost $400,000 on a large contract job last year, aggravating its cash-flow problems.


This year we have completed some 25 projects and have initiated a very good job-costing program. Within the last three months, we have reduced our work force by 30 percent and our overhead by 50 percent, he said.


The company also has worked with its bank and a corporate resource group to put together projections and cash-flow statements, and has set up a creditor-payoff plan that will work only if creditors are willing to forego service charges, Calvert said in the letter. It is our intention to pay off all of our creditors, if they will allow us to use this plan, he said.


Calvert hinted about emerging financial concerns in a March 2000 interview with the Journal, bemoaning that in the previous year he had violated several of the basic tenets for surviving in business. He said he had allowed the company to grow at a dizzying 200 percent pace at the same time he was overseeing construction of a new 20,000-square-foot, two-story building to house the burgeoning enterprise. Juggling the cash-flow and other administrative demands created by those developments turned out to be a more formidable chore than he anticipated, he said.


Calvert Technologies moved into its new building, located on 21st Avenue in Airway Heights, in January 2000. Although voicing concern about finances in the interview with the Journal two months later, he spoke positively about the companys prospects for continued growth in the automation-services industry.


At that time, Calvert Technologies employed about 30 people at its new headquarters and another 10 to 20 electricians in the field, with that number fluctuating based on need. Calvert said he expected the companys overall work force to grow by 15 percent to 20 percent a year for the foreseeable future.


The Calverts founded the company in 1973 at their home north of Fairchild Air Force Base, and it served initially as a manufacturers representative, marketing high-tech industrial products. It began designing, building, and installing control panels and related systems for water, wastewater, manufacturing, and food-processing plants about 16 years ago, and since then has broadened into other industries.


It wasnt until it bought the Telect division, however, that it really began to take off. That acquisition and the hiring of 14 former Telect employees gave the company the expertise to diversify more into general data communications, including the installation of video, card-access, fire, and fiber-optic systems, Calvert said.


As of spring of last year, Calvert Technologies was operating three divisionsan integrated-systems group, which was doing all of the companys specialty-contracting work; a manufacturing group, which was making a line of control panels and other control products under the ScadaMax brand name; and a service group, which was providing post-installation support to the companys customers.