A local manufacturer that purposely stayed small is finding a bit of comfort in a larger headquarters.
Costa Mesa-based Wet Okole Hawaii Inc. makes auto seat covers out of neoprene, the same material used for wetsuits.
Okole, which is pronounced “oh-koh-lay” and is Hawaiian slang for buttocks, expects to do about $6.5 million in sales this year.
The company’s covers are popular with surfers and parents looking to protect their auto interiors from water and wear brought on from kids and dogs.
Its new 25,000-square-foot factory in Costa Mesa is a welcome change from the seven different locations Wet Okole had been operating from, said founder and owner Phil Willms, who expanded during the years by branching out with small workspaces totaling about 17,000 square feet.
“This will be the first time we’re all under one roof,” he said.
For the past five years the company has grown yearly sales an average of 25% a year, according to Willms. Sales are off about 15% so far this year as some of its retailers struggle.
Nebraska-based retailer Cabela’s Inc. is one of Wet Okole’s largest customers, as well as a number of smaller dealers and boutique auto shops.
Willms, a 65-year-old former surfer, started the business from a Costa Mesa garage in the recession of the early 1990s.
The idea for the company came while Willms was living in Hawaii. But too many restrictions on manufacturing there led him back to his hometown of Costa Mesa to build his business, he said.
The covers cost about $475 on average with buyers installing them themselves. It recently added a version with built-in heating that pushes the price up another $35.
Wet Okole competes against larger companies including Shrin Corp. in Anaheim, which sells Cover King products.
“We never wanted to mass produce,” Willms said. “Dealing with some of the large sellers out there just wasn’t right for us.”
Brian Carmichael in Huntington Beach first made the original wetsuit-style seat cover more than two decades ago, but he no longer sells them.
Mortgage Check
This year’s surge in mortgage refinancing has helped Irvine-based Loan-Score Decisioning Systems see record sales.
The nine-year-old company’s software measures the credit worthiness of borrowers for credit unions, banks and other mortgage lenders.
The goal is to ensure quality for investors who buy the loans bundled as bonds.
Loan-Score is looking to do about $20 million in sales this year, up from nearly $4 million last year.
A recent rise in mortgage rates could be a challenge for the company.
It hopes to benefit from a recent partnership with the Federal Housing Administration that it spent a year putting together.
Loan-Score’s goal is to eliminate tampering with lending guidelines that can corrupt the process.
“Obviously this was a big problem in the past,” said owner and Chief Executive Bill McCord, who bought the company last year.
Bad loans combined with loose underwriting standards fueled the mortgage meltdown, he said.
Competitors include Insight Lending Solu-tions’ PriceMyLoan in Costa Mesa and Overture Technologies Inc. in Maryland.
McCord, who is from Hot Springs, Ark., said he’s owned several banks, bond firms, marinas, restaurants, racehorses and saw mills.
He began taking a closer look at Loan-Score as a potential acquisition in 2007 when the mortgage market was coming undone.
Sunscreen Startup
With summer weather just around the corner, Laguna Beach-based Smart Girls Who Surf is hoping its sunscreen will connect with beachgoers.
It’s touting its all-natural ingredients as healthy alternatives to competitors that use synthetic chemicals, some of which have been said to cause health problems.
The homegrown company, which has yet to peg a million in yearly sales, has its products made in Huntington Beach.
It sells to local drug stores and surf shops. At $16 for a four-ounce tube, the sunscreen is priced in the middle of the pack, according to owner Jennifer Taylor.
Taylor bought the company more than two years ago from her mother’s friend, then spent all of last year looking for a new sunscreen formula.
Chemists helped her come up with something free of synthetic ingredients and able to be applied to the skin without it having a thick, barrier-like coating.
“It took a long time to come up with a manufacturing process for it,” she said.
