Industry Focus
It Matters Where Its Made
- By Ralph C. Jensen
- Aug 01, 2017
When you walk through the
CyberLock facility with
Tammy Davis, you truly get
a sense of pride, responsibility
and an amazing relationship she has
developed within the community. Davis is
the president of the company. Oh, there is
one more thing that I truly appreciate: Made
in the U.S.A. As a matter of fact, everything
is made completely in Corvallis, Oregon.
I took a few minutes to visit John Moa
and Kelsea McNutt, and to my pleasure, Davis
joined in on a facility tour. CyberLock,
Inc. is located in a non-descript building on
the quiet, pastoral outskirts of Corvallis,
but inside it is a completely different story:
roughly 60 employees toiling away, meticulously
working on locks that will be shipped
worldwide.
At CyberLock, it all starts with engineering;
software, hardware design, mechanical
and electronic specialists, all working together
under the same roof. With Oregon State
University’s nationally recognized engineering
disciplines in close proximity, the local
community and CyberLock have reaped the
benefits of the “high-tech” climate in Corvallis.
It is no coincidence that the average
25-year-old Corvallis resident has a Master’s
Degree. Or, that Corvallis leads the nation in
per capita patent holders. Given that Cyber-
Lock’s founder, Stanford alumnus Paul R.
Davis, studied under the distinguished Marty
Hellman, an American cryptologist credited
with the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, it’s
no wonder that CyberLock excels at “hightech”—
delivering a smart key, electronic access
control system that is reliable and simple
enough to help with real-world problems.
“With a CyberLock system, it doesn’t
matter where the lock is—electronic access
control is possible,” Davis said. “By eliminating
the wire between the lock and the
managing software, the security system can
be installed virtually anywhere. The convenience
of a mechanical key system plus the
access permission and tracking capability of
an electronic access control system.”
The tour of the facility is more intense
than I can write adequately but suffice it to
say, every machine needed to bend materials,
punch holes or morph metal into locking
systems resides in the facility. Not many
manufacturers do it this way anymore. Don’t
get me wrong; there are companies that take
full advantage of American craftsmanship
and ingenuity. What caught my eye was CyberLock’s
dedication to the local community.
What better place to keep everything
local than in a close-knit, highly technical
community like Corvallis? The relationship
with the community is visible on the surface.
For instance, CyberLock is already a busy
place and when the onsite workforce needs to
boost production, there are factory-trained,
skilled and highly experienced local companies
able to assist. Factory quality control
and final product inspections are completed
onsite, and products are integrated into larger
product runs. No work leaves the community—
local families benefit.
This leads back to an opening statement
of taking a larger role within the community.
“We’ve manufactured our key-centric access
control system in Corvallis dating back
to 2000, when the first branded locks and
smart keys were introduced to the market.
Corvallis is our home, and we love it here,”
Davis said. “All of us take an immense
amount of pride in our work, the quality of
product we manufacture and the community
teamwork it takes to make it all happen.”
CyberLock is part of the Videx family,
which was founded in 1979 in Corvallis,
developing early products including display
enhancement for Apple computers. They are
different companies today, but they continue
to collaborate on future innovations.
Like I mentioned, made in the U.S.A.
This article originally appeared in the August 2017 issue of Security Today.
About the Author
Ralph C. Jensen is the Publisher of Security Today magazine.