Industry Focus

It Matters Where Its Made

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/Editor in chief of Security Today magazine.

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