Des Moines Register
11-28-06
Company's inventions create 'better way' for hog producers
Controltech finds success with automated feeding and vent systems for
enclosures.
By JERRY PERKINS
REGISTER FARM EDITOR
Growing up doing chores on his family's hog farm, Eric Holtkamp often yearned
for ways to make work easier.
"Nothing was automatic back then," said Holtkamp, 33. "I didn't know then what it
was, but I knew there had to be a better way."
Finding a better way led Holtkamp to start his own livestock equipment business,
Controltech Corp., which moved into a new building in the Broadway Business
Park west of Altoona six months ago. The company makes automated feeding
and ventilation systems for hog confinement buildings.
Controltech's sales will top $1 million for the second year in a row, Holtkamp
said. The number of units sold has grown from 700 in 2003 to 12,000 this year.
The business has benefited from a string of profits in the hog industry. Since
January 2004, Iowa hog producers have made money for 33 consecutive
months, according to estimated returns compiled by Iowa State University
Extension.
The company started with Holtkamp and his family developing and testing
products on the family hog farm near Donnellson.
After graduating from Iowa State University in Ames with a degree in
agricultural systems technology, he went to work in the hog industry and then
branched out on his own, servicing equipment and consulting with hog producers
on their equipment needs.
Controltech's first product, the PowerDrop, came from an idea Holtkamp had for
improving the automatic device that moves the curtains covering the sides of hog
buildings.
If the power goes out and ventilation fans stop, hogs inside a confinement can
suffocate if the curtains don't drop open.
Holtkamp built and tested the first PowerDrops in 2003 on the family farm. The
prototypes are still in use there.
"I tinkered with it and put together a handmade circuit board in my kitchen," he
said.
He introduced Controltech's second product, the Halo Feed System Control, in
2004. It uses an infrared sensor and electronics to automatically manage a
livestock feed system.
Holtkamp holds patents on both products.
As the company was growing, Holtkamp enlisted the help of family members,
including his father, Marvin; mother, Sue; and sister, Jen; to help perfect his
inventions.
Holtkamp has kept his business family- and friend- oriented.
His wife, Shawnee, is the office manager.
Joseph Sanders, a high school classmate of Holtkamp's, is production manager,
and Jim Gilchrist, who worked with Jen Holtkamp at the Iowa Pork Producers, is
chief financial officer.
Controltech has six full-time and three part-time employees.
Controltech buys components, then assembles the products in-house. Its
products are sold to distributors, who then market them to hog producers.
Holtkamp found the right time to enter the hog equipment business.
There was lots of building expansion in the hog industry in the mid-1990s. Then,
record-low hog prices hit in 1998 and 1999.
Those who survived the crash hunkered down for several years while they
recovered from their financial wounds.
By 2003, when Controltech started, many hog producers needed to erect
buildings or retrofit their existing facilities.
"Since 2004, hog prices have been good, new construction is strong and the
buildings that were put up in the mid-1990s need new equipment," Holtkamp
said.
The record-long profitable period has allowed surviving hog producers to recoup
their losses so they can rebuild.
Holtkamp said he's toying with ideas for products
He wants to sell more of his products to the poultry industry so his business is
less dependent on the hog cycle.
But, he said, he's not going to move too far, too fast.
"We're going to try to do what we do well before we move on to something else,"
he said.
So far, Holtkamp has let the sales of the PowerDrop finance the design and
production of the Halo feed system.
"I'm trying to make my technology fit the farmer and the other equipment in the
building," he said. "We can do it because we are a small company. We need to
stay on the personal level."
Farm Editor Jerry Perkins can be reached at (515) 284-8456 or
jperkins@dmreg.com