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Business

High Tech Manufacturer in Kalispell Sees Significant Growth

ClassOne Technology’s revenue has spiked more than 20% since the pandemic began

By Maggie Dresser
David Hunt, Lead Final Test Technician for Class One Technology, works on one of the company’s semiconductor electroplating machines in Kalispell on Oct. 21, 2021. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

In early 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic shut down the world, global manufacturing industries panicked and significantly cut back production as an uncertain economic future looked grim.

The production of electronic chips, which are in everything from iPhones to features in automobiles, saw a particularly sharp cut in supply as industry leaders worldwide prepared for the worst.

“When things get tight, they slow production down,” said John Ghekiere, the vice president of product and technology at ClassOne Technology in Kalispell. “Things can go bad fast and it slowed way down.”

But during global lockdowns, consumers bought more laptops to work from home, electronics to curb boredom and servers became overloaded as everyone logged onto Zoom, all of which increased the chip demand as producers reduced the supply.

As a semiconductor-plating manufacturer in Kalispell, Ghekiere says the demand for their products, which produces custom equipment that makes chips, has significantly increased and they’ve seen more than 20% growth in personnel and revenue since the pandemic began.

The guts of one of Class One Technology’s semiconductor plating systems manufactured in Kalispell on Oct. 21, 2021. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

“There was concern across the board at the beginning of the pandemic,” Ghekiere said. “Everybody went home and there was server demand, laptop demand and all these demands. We slowed for a very short amount of time and then it took off. It’s been exponential growth ever since.”

ClassOne Technology started in Kalispell in 2013 with five employees working out of a storage unit on Meridian Road and has since grown to 100 employees, most of whom are in Kalispell, with customers across the U.S., Europe, Israel, Asia and Taiwan, the hub of global chip production.

Their customers range from semiconductor manufacturers that make facial recognition chips to other chips that are installed in solar panels.

“They need to make these chips but there are a bunch of individual manufacturing steps,” Ghekiere said. “So they’ll buy individual equipment and we offer several of those, primarily electroplating. They buy our equipment to make chips.”

With two separate 11,000-square-foot facilities in Kalispell, employees conduct research and development at ClassOne’s lab south of town while engineers design and manufacture semiconductor-plating equipment at the north facility.

From design to packaging, products take roughly six months to manufacture before they are shipped all over the world.

“These tools take time to build,” said Jason Manger, vice president of operations. “We have to define the tool to what the customer needs and we have all the engineering design work upfront and then we start assembling.”

Born out of its sister company, ClassOne Equipment, which refurbishes semiconductor equipment based out of Georgia, managers wanted to branch out to create their own product. Since Kalispell was already home to Applied Materials, there was a base of prospective employees ranging from engineers to assemblers.

While the existing semiconductor equipment industry’s existence in the Flathead Valley created smoother operations, Manger says there are certain challenges to manufacturing in an isolated region of Northwest Montana, which include winter weather, transportation and workforce.

David Hunt, Lead Final Test Technician for Class One Technology, holds a wafer of metal of the type that is processed by the company’s semiconductor electroplating systems in Kalispell on Oct. 21, 2021. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

Even with a smaller labor pool, Manger says Kalispell is a great place to recruit people from elsewhere. But they also find workers at Flathead Valley Community College, offer an internship program and focus heavily on a person’s attitude rather than a college degree.

Manger and Ghekiere also emphasize ClassOne’s ability to pay its employees a high salary.

“You want to help people make more money and high tech manufacturing does that better than anybody,” Ghekiere said.

As ClassOne continues to grow, leaders at the company are hoping to consolidate their two buildings and expand positions from coast to coast. But they plan to keep home base in Kalispell.

“There is some world class manufacturing in the valley,” Ghekiere said. “We’ve been in the middle of high tech manufacturing for 40 years and it’s not that we’re getting good at this, the valley has been good at this for a long time.”

For more information, visit www.classone.com.