Edward L. Bittle remembers the phone call he received from the designing architect of the Toronto SkyDome stadium.
Special inflatable seals were needed to close gaps in sections of the dome’s massive movable roof. Could Bittle find a solution? No problem.
Then there was the call from the National Institute of Safety and Health in Cincinnati, which led to the development of an inflatable seal-type neck collar to prevent laboratory mice from breathing in chemicals used in certain lab experiments.
Whenever there’s a gap to fill, engineers around the world turn to Bittle because, as president of Kent-based companies Seal Master Corp. and ELBEX Corp., his product niche makes him the global expert in rubber seal designs that solve problems.
Bittle — a former rubber and inflatable seals specialist at Akron-based BF Goodrich and at Presray Corp. in New York — founded Seal Master in 1974 to design and manufacture inflatable seals and custom rubber products. Since then, it has produced more than 5,300 innovative designs for myriad applications. And Bittle has gained the trust of big-name customers such as Abbot Labs, Boeing, Dupont, General Electric, Ford, Goodyear, Steris, W.R. Grace and the U.S. government — from the Bureau of Mines to the Department of Agriculture, the Army and the Marines.
For example, F-15 and F-16 aircraft fly with Seal Master canopy seals. Steris uses the company’s rubber seals in sterilizing equipment. Nuclear power generating plants also rely on Seal Master solutions.
“Pharmaceutical companies, utilities providers, automobile makers — customers come to us not because we make a lot of things that go on their products, but because we make things that enable them to build and test their products,” Bittle says, emphasizing that Seal Master inflatable seals are custom built and molded to fit specific applications, to ensure structural integrity and reliability.
In 1991, Bittle established and incorporated ELBEX as a custom-extrusion rubber products manufacturer to complement Seal Master’s specialties.
“There’s a huge market for rubber extrusions, but we concentrate on areas where we can develop innovative, hard-to-come-by products that fill special needs,” he says, explaining that ELBEX takes on jobs that other companies can’t or won’t do.
Clients range from architectural engineers to original equipment manufacturers, Bittle says, noting that ELBEX products are found in all major industries, and used in buildings from airports to casinos, and in underground projects such as pipeline irrigation.
A competitive advantage for ELBEX, says Bittle, is its 34,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, where the company makes extruded rubber products ranging from 12-inch-wide seals for underground pipelines to skylight seals for high rise buildings.
To manufacture these products, the company custom builds much of its own equipment.
“We use our innovative abilities to build a lot of our own machinery to suit what we’re trying to manufacture,” Bittle says.
Today, Bittle employs 155 people — 75 at Seal Master and 80 at ELBEX.
“Our strong suit in both businesses is that we have experienced specialists who find innovative ways to solve problems and offer better products than anyone else,” he says. “It’s an adventure every day, and after 26 years, I still find it challenging to come up with a solution to a problem.” How to reach: ELBEX Corp./Seal Master Corp., (330) 673-8410
