Tri-Tech Forensics moved into another 50,000 square feet this fall in Brunswick County’s International Logistics Park, bringing the company’s local operations under one roof and growing its footprint to more than 80,000 square feet.

The company, which assembles and distributes supply kits for law enforcement and first responders, is one of the park’s three original tenants. Tri-Tech moved into an approximately 33,500-square-foot space in the industrial park’s first building in 2022.

Tri-Tech Forensics was founded as Tri-Tech Inc. in the Research Triangle in the early 1980s. The company moved its operations to Southport in 1994 before relocating to a 40,000-square-foot space in Leland in 2017. After the company’s initial move to the International Logistics Park, Tri-Tech leased about 45,000 square feet of warehouse space 5 miles south of the park.

“When the opportunity came here and the landlord decided to expand the building, we were able to obtain 50,000 more square feet under this roof,” said Mike Willison, the company’s vice president of operations, “and that has a lot of advantages for us to be able to not have product in two locations (and) have to run trucks back and forth.”

On a recent tour of the expanded facility, Willison showed the assembly lines where some of the company’s roughly 100 on-site employees put together custom forensic science kits for law enforcement agencies nationwide.

“For us, the kitting process is taking each one of these different components … and putting them together, and we literally will have people that will stand at each one of these spaces and put pieces into it,” Willison said. “Think the old-time assembly line. It’s a manual process where one person will put a few things in, hand it to the next person, they’ll put a few things in and they’ll hand it to the next person.”

The custom forensic kit assembly lines are housed in the company’s original footprint along with warehousing and a custom print shop. The company has also introduced a few automated lines to speed up the kit assembly process.

Automating tasks commonly used in the custom kitting process helps Tri-Tech keep up with the demand.

“If we didn’t invest in equipment to help keep up with that, we would have needed an army and a lot more space … to meet the orders,” Willison said.

A wall divides Tri-Tech’s original space from its recent expansion, where there’s an assembly line for Tri-Tech’s Rescue Essentials brand, which the company acquired in 2018. Rescue Essentials assembles custom first aid, tactical and emergency medical supply kits for first responders.

The company also has an e-commerce presence, selling individual Rescue Essentials supplies through Amazon, eBay, Walmart and its online store, Willison said.

“A lot of moving pieces for this building,” he said. “It’s almost like a Swiss Army Knife, if you think about it – we do a little bit of everything.”

The expanded building gives Tri-Tech more flexibility, according to CEO Jim Seidel.

“We have the space to react to our customers’ needs and market conditions,” Seidel wrote in a statement to the Business Journal, “so if we need more production space for assembly or storage space for inventory, we can accommodate that.”

In addition to growing its local footprint, Tri-Tech is expanding through acquisitions. In January, the company acquired Hartwell Medical, a California-based manufacturer of emergency medical supplies. A few months later, the company announced its acquisition of SAM Medical, an Oregon-based provider of emergency medical devices and trauma care supplies.

The acquisition of both companies allowed Tri-Tech to expand its proprietary offering of emergency medical products and help solidify its place in the market, said Jeff Hidek, Tri-Tech’s marketing director.

In the coming years, Seidel said he expects to see growth across the company’s divisions.

“All of our business divisions are growing and we expect them to continue to grow in the coming years,” Seidel wrote. “We will look to continue to do strategic acquisitions to compliment our existing businesses as they become available.”

Tri-Tech’s 2018 acquisition of Rescue Essentials led to the first big jump in its employee count, said Eric Barton, the company’s vice president of supply chain.

Like many companies, Tri-Tech struggled to hire needed employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, but since then, the company’s workforce has climbed from around 100 to about 150, Barton said.

The area’s available workforce factored into Tri-Tech’s decision to locate in the International Logistics Park because it’s on the county line between Brunswick and Columbus counties. In recent years, Tri-Tech has pulled an increasing number of employees from Columbus County and other parts of Southeastern North Carolina.

“This area won out,” Barton said. “We are now pulling employees from seven counties.”

That’s not uncommon, said Bill Early, executive director of the economic development group Brunswick Business & Industry Development. When working with potential businesses, Early said they typically look to draw from a workforce within a 45-minute to one-hour drive time radius.

Early said he sees big potential for the International Logistics Park – one of two megasites in Brunswick County. The industrial park has a conceptual master plan for the park’s development and, he said, the completion of the park’s first building sets the stage for growth.

“Having the International Commerce Center built, it allowed us the opportunity to get all of the infrastructure into the park,” Early said, “which makes it much easier and faster for future development.”

For Seidel, the industrial park’s plans for expansion mean Tri-Tech can grow in place without having to relocate again.

According to Early, discussions have started about permits for the industrial park’s second building, a proposed 260,000-square-foot structure that could be expanded to 400,000 square feet. Although no tenants have been secured for the new site, Early said he regularly submits the growing park as an option for prospective companies looking at Brunswick County.

“It’s truly our benefit to have a park like this that we can market,” Early said, “and I believe the potential for continued growth at that location is great.”