A few months after opening shop in Sugar Land, the self-taught Ontario native is happy to share his journey with the residents of his new city.
“I’m a worker, I have no formal education and didn’t finish high school. I’m just really good at inventing stuff,” Smiderle said. “I’m an entrepreneur at my core. I was born a little bit different. I don’t read or write very well but I can do complex calculations and I can see why physics works. I became really good at surrounding myself with people that could take what I can see and build things.”
While Smiderle aims to reshore supply chains and address the dearth of innovation around U.S. home textiles, his prime motivation is to create more jobs
“My mission is to create jobs,” he said. “That’s the legacy I want to leave. I want to give people meaningful employment. And so, anybody that’s willing to work, okay, I want to help provide them a future and the way to do that is repatriate the supply chain.”
Growing domestic footprint
The 170,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Sugar Land’s Covington Woods area is expected to double Soft-Tex’s production capacity and add 150 new jobs over the course of 2021.
“As promised, Soft-Tex has delivered and now continues to expand upon its commitment to growing its domestic footprint,” Smiderle said.
Soft-Tex began manufacturing its fiber filled products at the facility by June. There are three ways of filling pillows and bedding with synthetic fibers — garnet, blow fill and foam pouring — Smiderle explained. Garneted pillows are inserted with roll of polyester fiber, while blown pillows contain loose synthetic fibers. The relatively newer foam pouring method of filling pillows involves a liquid urethane mix poured into pillow or cushion shaped molds. The liquid mix expands and solidifies into a comfortable pillow.
“We import 1 million pillows (from China),” said Smiderle. “And we’re going to be able to pour 1 million pillows by the end of the year.”
Manufacturing had been next to impossible in the U.S. due to lack of infrastructure and the market’s addiction to low cost, Smiderle said.
“The way to combat that is to put technology into the thing and add value to it, so people will make the leap,” he said.
Smiderle became involved with Soft-Tex three years ago, when the bedding and home textile company expressed interest in commercializing Reactex, which Smiderle created in his workshop.
Reactex bedding products are designed to create a temperature-controlled sleeping environment. The self-recharging technology can store and release heat. The Reactex portfolio of technologies includes over 100 patents and patents pending.
“I said (to Soft-Tex) this is what we’re going to do, I’m going to merge with the company, I’m going to take over and share the company with you,” Smiderle said. “And we’re not going to be a bedding company anymore. We’re going to be an innovation company.”
The Sugar Land facility
Innovation comprises building more manufacturing units as well as a bold plan to reverse the flow of goods.
“What we build to here in Sugar Land we’re going to replicate all over the country,” Smiderle said. “We actually opened an office in Belgium, because I can actually export from Belgium into China and want to reverse the flow of goods from Belgium into China.”
The company plans to build two more facilities in the U.S. but has not yet chosen their sites.
Soft-Tex selected Sugar Land for its second facility because of its strategic location. The new, high-efficiency facility can produce approximately 445 pillows an hour, Smiderle said.
“We think we’ve done something good,” Smiderle said with a smile. “And I think it’s going to continue to fuel the system and job creation.”
juhi.varma@hcnonline.com
