Butler Technologies finds a worldwide market for its innovative products
Published by Butler Business Matters July 2019
Imagine undergarments that will tell you how high you just jumped.
Now drive over to Butler Technologies Inc.’s West Wayne Street headquarters and get a look at them.
Prototypes of the garments, which also can measure a slew of other factors including heart rate, muscle movement and blood pressure by way of a corresponding attachment and cell phone application, already have been utilized by pro and college sports teams.
But they’re just about to be released on the commercial market, said Tristan Tripodi, general manager at Butler Technologies.
Like heated jackets made for U.S. Olympic athletes in 2018, Butler Technologies manufactures a piece of the state-of-the-art final product.
The cutting-edge ideas, Tripodi said, are a domino extension of the company’s initial product line started in 1990 by his mother, Nadine Tripodi, and the late William Darney.
Butler Technologies first made “product identification products” … what end users might call labels or graphic overlays.
Uses for these could include a dial on a boat or a warning label on a piece of medical equipment.
Although these products remain the company’s core line, within a decade they inspired the second generation of goods: membrane switches.
The membrane switches begin with a label. Wires, concealed at the label, extend into a male receiver to connect to some other device and perform a function.
Examples include a keypad for a vending machine or the control panel for medical equipment.
“This was a natural growth extension for us,” Tripodi said. “It’s a variety of what we already were making and there was customer demand.”
Now the next level products use “bio receivers” in what Butler Technologies calls “Smart Garments.”
The garments, which Butler Technologies has had a hand in designing since 2008, use screen-printed sensors and electrodes to monitor body signals.
Like the undergarments, sensors are built into flexible material allowing a user to comfortably wear it, Tripodi said.
“Every time you move, your muscles send a message,” said Todd Gray, research and development specialist. “(This product) measures that, and it can tell you about your heart rate, fatigue, jump height.”
In addition to the sports performance uses, this concept has garnered a lot of interest in the medical field, Gray said.
“This could be used by doctors who want to monitor patients at home instead of having them visit the office,” Gray said.
Examples include gloves that measure the strength of someone’s grip, which would be useful for the treatment of stroke patients, Gray said. Or a garment could monitor recognizable signs that a body is about to encounter a stroke or heart problem.
Tripodi stressed that Butler Technologies’ products are “all custom manufacturing.”
Software, product testing, and marketing are done by the client.
“We manufacture just the items themselves,” Gray said. “We might help determine positions as to where the electrodes would do best, help design and develop and manufacture … Butler Technologies loves to push innovation to its limits.”
Today, Butler Technologies and its 65 employees have a worldwide fingerprint.
Their self-defined description, “Engineering-driven, technically-motivated, premium manufacturer of printed electronics, membrane switches, labels and graphic overlays” is getting worldwide attention, while the company maintains its traditional low profile locally.
“People have told me they cannot believe everything that goes on here, and that we’re like a hidden gem,” Tripodi said, crediting product advancements to answering customer needs and his mother’s ongoing “curiosity of, ‘What else can you do with printed, flexible electronics?’”
Nadine Tripodi, her son said, is an artist who paints and draws, making things with her mind and heart.
Nadine Tripodi said, “The most amazing part of our business is being able to create cutting edge products from a process (screen printing) that is over 100 years old. I have always loved making “things” and to be able to have a business where we make a number of different products is truly special.”
Tristan Tripodi said Butler Technologies’ success and evolution has been fueled by that creativity coupled with employee passion.
“Like Todd (Gray). He is extremely passionate about this. You can’t teach passion,” Tripodi said. “Sometimes he does research on his own. We have a lot of people who operate like that, and it makes us successful.”
Gray said Butler Technologies has another secret ingredient: “It’s like a big family here,” he said. “There are at least eight people who have been here for more than 20 years.
