By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

While the times continue to be difficult for mid-state fabric makers, textile manufacturers that call the Charleston area home are mining prosperity in niche markets and are focusing on higher-end products for other U.S. industries.

“As in so many other historical particulars, Charleston’s textile-related businesses were really forged by their location,” said Philip Owens, vice president of business development for the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce. “Mills gravitated to the headwaters upstate because they needed those waters to generate their power.

“When you look at Charleston, its role has always been as an exporter of goods and a provider of services to that industry,” Owens continued. “The companies that survive in the marketplace today have taken the concept of service to a whole new level.”

For the textile industry, the modern era of going after a niche or designated market began with Roger Milliken, who encouraged patriotic-minded customers to buy products “Made in the USA” to strengthen his Spartanburg-based textile and chemical company.

“They were at the forefront,” Owens said.

But if Milliken’s “niche” was both huge and readily recognizable to the person on the street, the region’s textile merchants have prospered in huge, though largely invisible areas.

“Take AstenJohnson Inc. in North Charleston, for instance,” Owens said. “They’re probably our most successful textile company, and the way they’ve done it is to manufacture felt needed for industrial uses, in particular for the paper industry.”

Another North Charleston-headquartered company, the Polymer Group Inc., creates high-performance polymers and composites for medical, industrial and specialty uses.

Foreign players

But it is not only companies that are headquartered here that are mining the benefits of serving niche markets. Foreign-based companies have established plants here to do essentially the same thing.

One is the French-owned Rhodia. Its Charleston plant was honored last year as manufacturer of the year by the South Carolina State Chamber of Commerce.

The plant manufactures specialty chemicals, such as phosphorus-based products use in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, flame-retardants and commercial and industrial cleaning applications. It is a major supplier to chemical giant BASF.

“Remember the old BASF commercials: ‘We didn’t make the skis; we made them better?’ Well Rhodia, here in Charleston, supplies the raw materials that make that happen,” said Owens, who credits the Port of Charleston for enabling local businesses to play that role.

“The port plays a huge part in this,” he said. “If you can get people what they need quickly and efficiently, they’re going to come to rely on you.”

Responding to needs

The Berle Manufacturing Co. Inc. hasn’t targeted a chemical or industrial niche—it has manufactured men’s and boy’s trousers and slacks for nearly 50 years—but like these other companies, it sees its location in Charleston as perfect for rapidly and effectively responding to customer needs.

“The niche we’ve found in the marketplace is our ability to turn a product around quickly and without the kind of lead time built in for products produced in the Far East and other international locations,” said Eric Kraycheck, the company’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

“At the same time, if there’s a problem, we’re right here to find a solution,” Kraycheck continued.

Because the “Made in the USA” designation, successfully promulgated by Roger Milliken, is important to customers, Berle Manufacturing will always have a domestic manufacturing presence, Kraycheck said.

But that hasn’t stopped the company from doing what Kraycheck described as “off-shore manufacturing” to serve overseas customers for whom the concept of “Made in the USA” has less resonance.

“Frankly, that’s where a lot of our growth is,” he said.

But he hastened to add that growth wouldn’t entice Berle Manufacturing to leave Charleston.

“Besides Charleston’s other advantages, it’s just a great place to live,” Kraycheck said. “Besides, we all grew up here.”

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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