Based in Garden Grove California, Westpak USA is ran by the father and son team of Steve and Craig Tyler. (Recently moved to new Anaheim, CA. location.)
Being the newest advertiser to join the MB, I thought I'd take this opportunity to ask some questions to learn more about their history and place in our beloved industry.
First let me introduce the Westpak people: Steve Tyler, Julie Bui, and Tony Cao are the principals and founders. Craig Tyler is Steve's son and is the General Manager who does Marketing and Operations. Steve Spriet is the President and Sales Manager, and comes from Plastiflex (Vacuum hoses), with many years of experience in sales in this industry. We all wear different hats from time to time. In our warehouse we have a team of three brothers working in shifts to monitor quality and shipping.
- What is Steve Tyler’s history in the cleaning end of the industry?
Steve's history is more in engineering with the Toro Company and the Rain Bird Company for about 18-20 years where he designed sprinklers, valves, and controllers for the irrigation industries. He started Westpak USA in 1999 as a product design company. Our focus changed more to the cleaning industry products and tools after a few years.
- What was the 1st product he came up with?
The first product was an angle valve, known as the "soft touch valve". This valve is designed to be easier to operate and self cleaning at a reasonable price. You’ve seen it in the forged brass and stainless steel versions. It is used in a lot of products in the market today.
- How large of an operation are you?
Perhaps the better question is how small are we? We have about 10 employees, although sometimes it would be nice to double that. We just purchased a larger building in Anaheim and we’re looking to grow our operation. Our strength is in our ability to warehouse products and deliver quickly, especially for repeat customers and distributors.
- Are all your products made here in California?
Our products are designed and tested in the US. While we have some small manufacturing and assembly capabilities in California, most of our manufacturing is done overseas through several off-shore facilities that have been proprietary business partners for many years.
- Do you have Tony Dang's photo up in the lunch room so employees know when to call the cops?
Who is Tony Dang?
- What are your top five best sellers?
The soft-touch valve, detail tools, quick disconnects, classic wands, and valve repair kits. #6 is the 12” truckmount wand though.
- What percentage of your wands end up with Glides on them, any idea?
It’s hard to tell. Since we work mostly with OEMs and distributors most of the glide sales come after they’ve left our shop. I think the bigger wands get a glide quite a bit and the aggressive 2-jet low profile wand, 10-0530 arrow wand, we have almost requires a glide.
- Do you honestly feel a two inch wand offers a performance increase worth the extra cost and fatigue on the worker's body?
This is difficult to answer. Cost is usually not an issue when you want performance. Fatigue on the body is a different call. I’m glad the industry has items like soft-touch valves, ergonomic handles, and glides to take some of that fatigue away from the user. With those options I think it becomes a good compromise. We also have a 1.75” tube that meets in the middle, it’s easier to hold, but still has some decent performance.
- Is partial fabrication (such as the handles on a HOSS700) for other companies a considerable part of your business? Care to share some others that you provide parts for?
This is actually how we became introduced into the business. We had always planned to build our business around fabrication for others. While it used to be a large portion of our business, it’s not especially significant today. We’ll avoid naming other products, but we have worked with both large and small manufacturers to customize their offerings. We’re typically open to working with anyone with an idea and use our expertise to help them to the best of our ability.
- Have you ever made cast headed wands?
We do make injection molded polycarbonate clear heads for some of our detail tools. Currently we are making our blaster series hard surface squeegee and brush wands which are cast.
- Will you be the first to borrow the vacuum design from the Hydroforce CX15 and make a carpet wand? ( don't delay, the airflow is tremendous)
Perhaps, although we might have to take a second look at it as we weren’t impressed with it from the demos we’ve seen. We’ve got several projects in the works right now and maybe there is a design that has excellent performance that is more simplistic with the same performance.
- Who does your RnD? Actual cleaners in the field every day or a pet monkey in the back room?
We do have a back room, and the monkey is sometimes cranking out new designs. We have a collaborative effort between Steve Tyler, Craig, and Steve Spriet. Steve Tyler does most of the design, Craig looks over everything with a fine tooth comb, and Steve Spriet works with local distributors and customers to get industry input.
- What are your thoughts on the high flow craze? We have some cleaners here that jet their wands to 30 flow and almost all hipster bulletin boarders double or triple the flow from the stock 06 industry average.
I am not sure it is the best for the industry. Much of our product sales go to entry level and lower cost users. My thoughts are that yes, high flow (water and air) can clean better, but the cost to the carpet cleaner is higher and possibly prevents some to be in this business. Better equipment, truck mounts, wands, and tools of all kinds is good for the consumer when the carpet cleaner uses the equipment properly.
- Did Craig always embrace his future in the company early on or did he wait until his fifth and final rejection letter from Dancing With The Stars before coming on board?
He never was a good dancer, but he wouldn’t listen…Craig is working out his career to be a bicycle racer now, but he’ll keep coming back for more after he breaks every bone in his body. He’s worked off and on for us since 2002 and seems to be on a good streak right now. We’ll use him while we got him!
- Do you make anything for outside of the cleaning industry?
We have made products from time to time for other industries. For a while we were making equipment for the food packaging industry and we also dabbled in massage chairs. We’ve got some good connections for running boards and it wouldn’t be too difficult to get into mufflers if you want some awesome pipes.
- and finally, what product out there gave you the best " dammit, why didn't we think of that" moment?
Perhaps we should have designed a forum to bring questions and answers to large groups, but no, too much work. Seriously we choose our "battles" carefully, and select our products to introduce based on potential success and benefit to the industry. Most of the items we get upset over are small in comparison and we’re still working on them like adjustable spray bars and the awesome handle Mytee has. We like to keep our blinders on
Thanks for coming on board Steve and Craig!!!
