Military stocks lotion, frames

Two Florida defense contractors make sure troops can see out of their gas masks and that they don't sunburn.

By KRIS HUNDLEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 19, 2003

CLEARWATER -- Compared with defense megacontractors such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, Bill Lay's 22-person machine shop in Clearwater hardly seems a crucial cog in the nation's war machine. Yet Keystone Tool and Mold, a maker of plastic injection molds, has found a niche that's as critical as that of the big contractors for the forces mobilizing to attack Iraq.

About two years ago, Lay and his partner James Kane bid on a government contract to make special plastic frames that hold prescription or special protective lenses inside soldiers' gas masks. Business was slow but steady until about six months ago. Then the floodgates opened.

"Orders went up 500 percent and we started producing 10,000 pieces a week, working 24 hours a day," Lay said. "With this war thing, it's been going through the roof."

Lay's company isn't the only small company in Florida that's shifted into overdrive with war-related work. Another is Paul Burke's Native Tan Sun Care products in Daytona Beach. It just got slammed with its second Defense Department order for 150,000 4-ounce bottles of suntan lotion, with an SPF of 15.

"Hey, sunburn can incapacitate a person just as much as a light wound," said Burke, whose company has been selling tanning oil to the military for eight years. "We like to say if our product is good enough for battle, it's good enough for the beach."

Burke, now the sole suntan lotion supplier to the military, said in the past Defense Department orders averaged about a quarter-million bottles a year, coming in increments of 20,000- to 40,000-bottle orders. This year he expects military sales to quadruple. "You got so many reservists coming on board," Burke said. "And they're going to have concentrated exposure to the sun."

Military orders get priority on Burke's automated production line, he said, even though they're not particularly profitable. "I bid it low because I wanted bragging rights, and it's a way to say I'm proud to be a U.S. citizen," Burke said. "You'd pay more if you bought it off the shelf at Kmart." Though he declined to specify the value of his military contract, Burke said a recent order for 150,000 bottles was worth in excess of $100,000.

In Clearwater, Lay also declined to offer financial details. But he expects military sales will account for 75 percent of Keystone's revenue this year, up from 25 percent in the past.

The bump in business for the custom gas mask part meant doubling his work force with 11 temporary workers. The frame, which in the past had been made out of metal, is fitted into the masks of soldiers who need either corrective lenses or lenses to protect against lasers. Though the government provided the mold, Lay had to scramble to get raw materials to meet the military's demand for a five-day turnaround on orders.

Now that war appears imminent and field forces are adequately equipped, Lay is starting to see orders taper off. His production line has cut back to 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Supplies are starting to stockpile.

While war may signal a slowdown in Lay's business, Burke at Native Tan thinks his orders will only increase. And nothing could make him more proud than the thought of thousands of soldiers lathering up with the secret formula he perfected as a lifeguard in 1957.

"I hate to pay income taxes," Burke said. "But I like to do this."

-- Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727)892-2996.

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