KALAMAZOO ? One of those technology home runs that Gov. Rick Snyder hopes to hit in Michigan – mophie, the manufacturer of the juice pack, billed as the first ?Works With iPhone? portable battery solution certified by Apple – announced it will build a 30,000-square-foot call and distribution center at Western Michigan University?s Business Technology and Research Park to serve as its North American distribution headquarters.
mophie sells millions of portable power units as well as phone covers and accessories for smart phones and tablet computers in more than 100 countries and 18,500 retail stores worldwide. Seventy-eight percent are sold in the United States, the rest in Europe and Asia. Co-founder and Kalamazoo native Shawn Dougherty said Michigan will become mophie?s ?brains.? But the brawn ? assembly – will remain in southern China, for now.
?Inside sales, accounting, distribution and customer service will be handled through Michigan,? she said. ?Our plans also include a state-of-the art warehouse. We?re definitely looking at doing some light assembly and customization in the U.S. as well. We plan to move stuff home from China.?
Bob Miller, WMU Associate Vice President, said landing mophie has been a major coup for Western Michigan University and the state. Miller has been the university?s point man on developing the 265-acre innovation park since its inception.
?This is one of the world?s leading technology companies,? Miller said. ?It is a true Apple partner. We?re thrilled to recruit them.?
Mophie, in turn, will be used as a recruiting tool by WMU, Miller said. He said teenagers know about mophie?s juice pack and will think the university is a ?cool place to go to college.?
The only fly in the ointment is the sale of the property to mophie hinges upon the Michigan Economic Development Corp. coming up with financial incentives, he said.
MEDC President Michael Finney declined to comment on the mophie incentives.
?We have a policy that we do not discuss deals that we may or may not be working on,” Finney said.
But Dougherty said she?s confident the MEDC will come through. In any case, she said it is vital mophie break ground on its new buildings before winter, a key demand mophie made to the Western Michigan board.
The construction plans call for mophie to build a 30,000 square foot building, followed by a second 20,000 square foot facility, Dougherty said. Once built, 15 new jobs in customer service, tech support and accounting will be generated in 2013, 17 in 2014 and 19 in 2015. Mophie has 27 full-time employees already working in Paw Paw, many of them WMU grads.
Dougherty graduated from Kalamazoo Central and attended classes at Michigan State University. For the past several years, part of the company?s operations have been housed on the back side of the St. Julian Winery in Paw Paw. The company began life in 2005 in Oshtemo Township in a pole barn behind her family?s Dougherty?s Corners Market on West Main Street. Then it was called mStation Audio LLC, and sold audio docking systems for Apple?s iPod music players.
Dougherty and co founder Daniel Huang acquired mophie in 2006, assumed its name and shifted into designing and manufacturing cases and accessories for the iPhone, which was launched in 2007. The administration, sales and marketing for the company relocated in October of 2009 to Santa Ana. Apple has its headquarters in San Jose, Calif., about 380 miles to the north. The company has grown steadily as the popularity of iPhones and other smart phones has soared, riding the backs of millions of iPhones.
The next big mophie product just hit the market – an action sports camera called Outride. It includes a hardware and app solution for the iPhone. Outride hardware is waterproof and impact resistant and comes bundled with a variety of custom mounts to capture action shots in the surf, snow, dirt or concrete.
Products with GPS capability also are in the product development pipeline.
This story was written by Senior Technology Writer Mike Brennan. His day job is Editor & Publisher of MITechNews.Com.
