North Star rolls out its wares to the world

Many parts of the world come to Cheney and Eastern Washington University for education.

What is not so evident is that other parts of the world also do business with a Cheney company that manufactures unique products for the ceramics industry.

North Star Manufacturing is located on First Street west of town in a steel-sided building in Cheney's Technological Park and supplies ceramics businesses with three primary products: slab rollers, extruders and a device called a shelf truck.

North Star makes what is called "secondary studio equipment." Almost all of their products, outside of a few components, are manufactured in Cheney

"Our bread and butter product is called the slab roller," owner Rhonda Elliott said of the device that sells for $929.95 and transforms clay into a flat sheet.

The extruder makes clay into a specific shape with prices starting at $370.

The shelf truck holds the finished, or nearly-completed products, and with a cover can provide a controlled environment, it allows a potter to continue to work on a piece. It retails at $659.

Within the walls of North Star is virtually every piece of equipment any modern manufacturer might need including a full machine and paint shop - complete with powder coating - and an enormous computer controlled router.

Every one of North Star's machinists are over 65 years-old, Elliott said, "Our work ethic goes like this; if you're over 50 you know what one is." Some equipment North Star uses is also "old school," with one of the lathes dating back to the 1930s.

"We moved to Cheney in 1991 and at that point we had none of this stuff," Elliott said. "We had almost every part made elsewhere, we brought them into the old Sears building, actually, painted them, packaged them and shipped them out."

Relying on contractors that might not have had the same standards was a problem.

"We decided that the only way we were going to have decent quality control - and we were getting busier and busier and busier - was if we do this ourselves and we control as much of it as we can," Elliott explained. That occurred in 2003 with the move to the present building.

Before landing in Cheney, the company that traces its roots to Texas and Elliott's late husband, Bob Creighton, had been located all over the Northwest. After Texas, North Star moved to Seattle, Cusick, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Omak and finally Cheney.

When operating in Omak the company was growing rapidly Elliott said. The moves came because North Star was outgrowing the space it was renting, but relocating to Cheney had another motive.

"We were killing ourselves driving from Omak to Spokane to get parts, (with) a three hour trip (six hours both ways), two or three times a week" Elliott said.

As they looked for the next place to locate after Omak, Elliott said, "We needed to move, we knew most of our suppliers were in Spokane but we didn't want to live in Spokane. What we did was get out a map and drew a circle around every town that was within 30 minutes of Spokane."

A call to the Cheney Chamber of Commerce and the interest they showed sold Creighton and Elliott on the city. Creighton, passed away in 2011 after a life-long battle with diabetes.

North Star currently employs 12 people, but that number fluctuates, Elliott said. At least 30 percent of North Star's business revolves around school art programs and ebbs and flows accordingly.

It used to be in July the business was slow and then super busy in September when schools ramped up again. "We're always really busy in November and December," Elliott said.

That was the pattern until 2007 with what has become known as the Great Recession hit. "Everything basically went to hell and I don't know how we survived it," Elliott said.

In addition to schools, North Star has a network of distributors both domestically and worldwide. About 20 percent of the business for the company belongs to hobby potters, but that number varies because some of that market is also retail.

Internationally, North Star does business in Denmark - one of their oldest customers - as well as England, Japan, Australia, Israel, Canada and others.

"This is a small niche business," Elliott explained. "Worldwide there might be 12 manufacturers of this kind of stuff." North Star is one of three in the United States.

While dealing with ceramics people is their bread and butter, North Star dabbles in making their equipment work for other applications.

"A customer in New Mexico called and said, 'Hey, I want to make tortillas on your slab roller," Elliott said. North Star made a food grade slab roller for her.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].