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FACING PAGE, TOP:Interior of the Crystal Palace, a cast-iron and plate-glass structure built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The elaborate construction was inspired by new innovations happening in sheet glass manufacturing at the time and still stands as an inspiration to architectural innovation today.

BOTTOM:Oceanside Glasstile factory in Tijuana, Mexico, where Uroboros and Spectrum glass will now be produced.

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By Megan McElfresh

We’ve gotten spoiled by the incredible quality and accessibility of our art glass here in the United States. The days of ‘testing your glass for compatibility’ have faded, some of us missing them

entirely—our youth makes us even less aware of what was once an excruciating process! What has been the achievement of a lifetime for the founders of Bullseye, Uroboros, and Spectrum, is something only recently possible at all. It’s interesting to look at the advances in window glass making that led to a fabulous period of unparalleled creativity in stained glass manufacturing.

For centuries, the only way to make sheet glass was the crown and cylinder method. In the 1840s, industrial glass companies began pioneering a method of cast, rolled sheet glass. This allowed larger format sheets, but could not overtake the efficiency and possibility of longstanding methods. Over the next 130 years, glass sheet making received considerable technical and engineering attention as architects sought to utilize glass in ever more daring structures, and automobile manufacturers needed not just flawless glass, but much more glass than had ever been produced. Glass needed to be bigger, safer, and more efficient to meet the demands of the modern world, as well as the demands of glass artists.

The late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century glass color experiments and successes of John La Farge, Louis C. Tiffany, and glass chemists like Arthur Nash, are famous. By the late 1880s, American Opalescent Glass as they pioneered it—ladled and rolled out with its vibrant colors and often iridescent sheens—had a global reputation. While numerous opalescent sheet glass companies started up during that time, only two companies born during the ‘Opalescent Age’ of Tiffany and La Farge are still operational today: Kokomo Opalescent Glass Company, founded 1888, and The Paul Wissmach Glass Company, Inc., founded 1904.

The “Opalescent Age” began to die out in the 1920s with changing aesthetics and the onset of the Great Depression, but the drive for better window glass and the technology that effort required was only amplified by the industry which came with the two World Wars. It was also in the 1920s that one of the most important technological advances in the history of sheet glass making took place: the development of “continuous ribbon” production. This system takes four separate time and labor intense phases of sheet glass production (raw material introduction, melting, sheet forming and annealing) and combines them into one continuous flow, making possible the production of large quantities of glass with a uniform design. This development allowed manufacturers to actually improve quality while boosting volume and lowering costs. Without continuous ribbon production, float glass would not have been possible. (Nor would Spectrum Glass have been possible 50 years later.)

In the 1950s, the studio art movement was gaining momentum across a multitude of craft media, especially ceramics. The conduit for the studio glass movement, Harvey K. Littleton and his historic Toledo workshops of 1962 are practically legend, surpassed only by the stories of some of his early students—Dale Chihuly, Marvin Lipofsky, Fritz Dreisbach, Boyce Lundstrum, Dan Schwoerer, and more—all artists who played prominent roles in shaping the North America studio glass movement.

PART I

History and Innovation in Twentieth Century Window Glass Making

Editorial note: SGAA members, Stained Glass Quarterly subscribers, and glass workers everywhere have been anxious for news of Uroboros, Spectrum, and Oceanside Glasstile. SGAA member Megan McElfresh recently undertook the monumental task of researching and writing the story, and we present it here in the following three articles. Thank you, Megan!

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Over the next 10 years, the studio glass movement picked up increasing speed, hampered only by a desperate need for material. In 1973, when Bullseye, Uroboros, and Spectrum were beginning their sheet glass making journeys, there were only two glass supply purchasing options: Wissmach and Kokomo. While both created incredible product, they could not meet the new demand from the sudden bubble of studio artists. Stories abound of people lined up for blocks at the doors of their local glass companies due to rumors of a shipment expected that day. Even wholesale suppliers with “buying rights” to Wissmach and Kokomo were waiting six months to two years for delivery of their orders.

It is entirely possible that the studio glass movement would have fizzled without the founders of Bullseye, Uroboros, and Spectrum. Because of their dedication to figuring out the science, alchemy, and artistry of art glass manufacturing, they were able to create the material that inspired the renaissance of an industry.

Uroboros: A Man and a PipedreamEric Lovell has been lauded as one of our time’s greatest glass alchemist’s, bringing the vibrant styles of the age of Tiffany back to life while also creating some of the most breathtaking new color mixes to be found anywhere. Uroboros products have been crucial to the revitalization of Tiffany lamps, and used in everything from architectural glass and public artworks to lampworking, fusing, and mosaics. It’s hard to imagine what the stained glass landscapes of the last

40 years would have looked like without the vibrancy of the Uroboros Glass palette. The one-of-a-kind pieces they have created are coveted by glass artists worldwide.

Uroboros Glass was founded in January, 1973 as a hot glass studio by Lovell. After studying glass blowing at Portland State University, he took it up as a career and began creating multicolored sheet glass on the side for artists and hobbyists. He was asked about creating specialty sheet glass often enough that he sat down with his dad (a PhD economist) and laid out a plan for starting a sheet glass studio. After looking at the numbers, the investment that would be required, and the number of unknowns still a part of the equation, the pair agreed that the prospect seemed pretty dire. Lovell’s dad actually encouraged him not to start Uroboros Glass Studios (as any loving father would).

At the time, it wasn’t only the economics of the initial investment that looked scary on paper; figuring out how to formulate, mix, melt, roll, and anneal those sheets was something of a pipedream. Though history showed us that beautiful opalescent glass was possible to produce, the decades since the closure of the Tiffany’s Corona Sheet Glass Company and other opalescent manufacturers might well have stretched to centuries.

But there’s nothing like being young and bulletproof—except maybe being told not to do something while you’re young and bulletproof. Eric Lovell decided to start Uroboros Glass despite the risky economics. The intense determination and resolve which has defined Lovell’s career proved more

FACING PAGE:Eric Lovell rolling on Uroboros' last Portland production day, January 31, 2017.

THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:A Uroboros team favorite, U60-165 Streaky art glass; Lovell in the shop, 1973; Uroboros dragon doubloons; one of the first Uroboros advertising posters.

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valuable than the lack of information available at the time. It had been done, therefore it could be done, therefore Lovell did it.

The complexity of making sheet glass cannot be overstated. Not only is Eric Lovell is one of the best glass chemists of our time, he also has an innate mechanical ability which has been invaluable to the company’s history and innovative potential. Every morning, he quickly walks through the factory floor, listening to the equipment work. Instantly, he can tell if everything is operating as it should be. The art glass community has been incredibly spoiled by the quality and artistry of Uroboros glass and watching Lovell work. It’s no wonder—his attention to detail is exacting and his passion is contagious.

Lovell’s understanding of the nuance and chemistry of glass making has allowed him not just to make art glass, but to make it available across a wide spectrum of useable ranges: Uroboros makes 90, 96, and 104 in their factory and has made their glass available in other ranges on special request. Today, Uroboros has a worldwide market of glass blowers, lamp workers, stained glass artists, kiln formers, and more. The rich, intense, handcrafted sheet glass of Uroboros is an art form in itself, often replacing traditional painting in representing nature: foliage, flowers, rocks, water, and sky. There is no equal to Uroboros when trying to imitate the work of Tiffany and La Farge: its products have frequently been used in historical restorations of Tiffany originals by museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the

Morse Museum of Tiffany Art, and by professional studios and collectors as well.

Lovell has shown the same care in hand picking each member of his Uroboros team. As the company slowly grew, Lovell always ensured that he found employees who had the same strong values, beliefs, and artistic drive to match the demands of creating Uroboros Glass. By carefully listening to what artists were asking for, and concentrating on a niche, high-end market, Uroboros built an strong product line that defied expectations of even the most exacting artists. Throughout its four-and-a-half-decade history, Uroboros hired teachers over sales and marketing staff, knowing that education was the key to the success of all glass users.

Artist after artist talks about visiting the factory and slowly looking through the racks of sheet glass, like sorting through treasure. Finding each piece distinctly beautiful in its own right; each a work of art. “We don’t know what we’ll use it for yet, but we have to have it.” When it’s time, we’ll design our work around the amazing glass created at Uroboros, the amazing legacy of Eric Lovell and his incredible team of craftspeople.

THIS PAGE:Ribbon of System 96® Southwest Fusers’ Reserve™ coming down the line.FACING PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:

First attempt at a continuous ribbon machine (c. 1974) sent glass crashing to the floor; Don Hanson, one of the three inventors of the “Continuous Ribbon” Spectrum process inspects a sheet of Spectrum Artique® glass; although hand-mixing is crucial to the Spectrum process, “AL” another Spectrum invention, is a mechanical, automated ladler created to take molten glass out of a furnace to add to the stream of glass during production. AL is still used to make many products today; Spectrum's Woodinville, WA factory being built mid-1970s.

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Spectrum: The Beauty Found in Not Knowing If starting Uroboros seemed a little risky, Spectrum entered the glass manufacturing world from a position of complete impossibility. The founders of Spectrum—Don Hansen, Ron Smids and Jerry Rhodes—had a background in industrial glass furnace engineering and had traveled the globe helping to convert industrial gas furnaces to electric. They first ran into glass artists when they were contacted to help with some melting problems up at the new Pilchuck Glass School. Dale Chihuly was camped out on some tree farm on Mt. Pilchuck, north of Seattle, along with Fritz Dreisbach and a handful of other glass blowers who were trying to start a school for glass artists, literally, in the middle of nowhere. (Different story.)

At the time, the Pilchuck artists were having serious problems melting a clean, white, opalescent glass in their blowing furnaces. Don, Ron, and Jerry were brought in to figure out the furnace issue. As they got to know these glass artists, both on their mountain perch and back in the city of Seattle, one thing that kept surfacing in conversation was their frustration with a continuing shortage of opalescent and cathedral sheet glass.

From their time working together in the industrial glass world, Ron, Don and Jerry knew that continuous-melt had four definite advantages over single-sheet systems that would be especially valuable in art glass production and answer the shortage: consistency, cut-ability, surface brilliance, and volume.

Their entrepreneurial spirits were intrigued and their ignorance of the impossibility of their concept was great. Clear glass had been made via continuous ribbon systems since 1920; the real crux of their engineering problem was

in developing the ability to make multicolored glass with the system. They had no idea that what they were attempting to accomplish had been tried before, failed, and determined to be impossible. Together, they gambled that it was technologically possible and economically feasible to create multi-colored glass in a continuous ribbon system.

Their concept was a simple one: Melt white glass in one furnace, colored glass in another, and direct the flows into a single channel. The first attempt at the process was a miniature, handmade furnace and roll machine, held together with strapping tape and bailing wire, standing alone on the floor of an otherwise empty warehouse in a rundown neighborhood of west Seattle. Those first thin ribbons of sheet glass fed through the rollers and crashed to the floor.

At the confluence of the channel where the clear and colored glass came together, they designed a mechanized paddle-wheel that mixed the two glasses together to create the variegation. Initial tests failed miserably. Instead, a real human with a steel rod could stir the glasses together by hand, creating a saleable product while they continued to refine the mechanized design. As time went by and mechanized tests continued to fail, the

Continuous Ribbon & Art GlassIn the Spectrum process, raw materials are introduced into a tank furnace, displacing existing molten glass and forcing it, stream-like, down a channel called the forehearth. At the end of the forehearth the red-hot liquid pours into a deeper pool, the stirring bay. Continuously moving, the glass flows from the stirring bay through a pair of water- cooled forming rolls, flattening into uniform thickness and becoming an endless ribbon of sheet glass. It is drawn directly into the annealing lehr, passing through a tunnel of 28 individual oven sections, annealing and cooling before emerging and being cut by hand into 48” lengths. This flow of glass from the primary furnace is either an end in itself (a smooth cathedral) or the base glass for the more complex products that Spectrum produces.

Multi-colored glasses are achieved when secondary glass colors are melted in smaller furnaces located on a platform near the forehearth channel. As the base glass flows down the forehearth, one or more secondary glasses are ladled by hand into the stream. Then, at the stirring bay, the different glasses are carefully stirred together by a skilled operator using a hand-held rod.

Both the timing of the ladling and the stirring technique are critical to the end result, and vary for different products. Spectrum’s popular “wispies” are made by ladling small amounts of white opal into the flow of a cathedral base. The denser “lamp-glasses” are just the opposite—small amounts of cathedral are ladled into a flow of opal glass. The semi-translucent opal mixes are almost half and half opal/cathedral and require a more strenuous ladle rate—as much as one jumbo pour every 20 seconds.

Hand ladling and stirring is critical to the Spectrum process and varies drastically from style to style. The ladlers pour at carefully timed intervals, watching clocks equipped with timing lights to cue their movements. •

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(human) furnace operator got better and better with the stirring rod. He could create broad, lazy swirls or tight little curls. He could blend colors together so they seemed to homogenize, or he could keep them distinct and contrasting. About the time he learned to write his girlfriend’s name in the glass, the mechanized paddle-wheel idea was finally abandoned.

All-in-all, it took two years to develop and build Spectrum Glass Company. In retrospect, if those determined engineers had known that a few years earlier, a highly reputable, technically advanced European glass company had put great effort into producing multicolored sheet glass continuously, only to fail after a major investment of time and money... if they had realized how difficult it would be to engineer, how complex some of the formulas would be and how precise the timings would have to be... they all admitted that they never would have tried.

Thank God for their ignorance, for what they built is virtuosity itself. Patented in 1979, it remains the only one of its type anywhere in the world. •

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By Megan McElfresh

A Shifting Market and Unlikely SalesA revolutionary change in the new West Coast Glassmakers business efforts over their historic counterparts was not only in supplying material, but in focusing massive efforts on educating and sharing information about the capabilities of their material with the end user. Each company produced written material and sent teachers (instead of salespeople) out to studios and expos. Workshops and classes sprang up around the country and after completing courses students returned home and spread the news. This became particularly important as “tested compatible” glass was developed. In so doing, the demand of the early 1970s grew all the way through the ’80s and early ’90s as a network of new suppliers, small studios, and artists were able to enter the market.

The huge, positive force of Uroboros and Spectrum working together on the development and rollout of System 96 was mirrored in partnerships they shared with the kiln company Skutt and other tool, resource, and design companies. It provided a consistency and reliability across product lines that was appealing to many education hubs, resource centers, and a wide variety of end users. The System 96 line was generally more compatible to hot end users like blowers and lampworkers which allowed the companies to be something of a one stop shop to studios providing a wide range of services in glassworking like Museums and larger teaching centers.

While Uroboros grew and eventually moved into a large warehouse in 1984, the founders of Spectrum Glass went big from day one. In addition to their focus on stained glass production, and glass-blowing cullet, they also targeted and successfully tackled larger architectural glass sizes for the home and commercial application as well as having a large business segment in interior design products. Spectrum’s unique production process allowed them to work with industry giants like Home Depot to design and deliver lighting products nationally.

In 2002, the market started shifting. Overseas competition drastically cut into Spectrum’s production of home lighting fixtures. The System 96 production line was making gains,

but all domestic art glass manufacturers began to see the purchasing in stained glass materials tapering off after an incredible 30-year growth cycle. For the next six years, all manufacturers would slowly scale back their production to carefully match shrinking demand. Smaller manufacturers, such as Uroboros, had an easier time with this because their systems, while lacking the ultimate capacity of Spectrum, are inherently more flexible.

Then the entire market plunged in 2008, affecting demand at every level of the art glass industry but felt most strongly by manufacturers. For manufacturers, it has been a blast which has yet to finish resonating.

Adjusting production levels is much more complicated than just making a little more or a little less glass. Each furnace operates best with a very specific amount of melted glass being maintained. Production schedules are planned months in advance. Raw materials take time to source and longer to deliver. As furnaces are used and need basic maintenance and repair, factories must plan very ahead as replacement kiln-brick can take eight months or more to arrive when ordered. Decisions had to be made looking into what was now a very murky future. Furnaces run around the clock, around the calendar, non-stop for over a year or longer when they’re in use. It takes 10 days to cool a furnace down and longer to bring a system back on line: these are not processes which lend themselves well to hiccups; alterations are best made to last over the long haul.

In reality, it takes months to alter the overall production level at an art glass manufacturing facility—a lot of time to endure financial difficulties when the market changes drastically overnight. Spectrum’s capacity sank well below 40% before leveling off at approximately 40%. Uroboros adjusted production flow and work schedules, but each factory demands a certain “minimum” crew level to safely and properly run the furnaces at all.

As the nation slowly recovered over the next five years, other market factors also began to bear down on the factories more forcibly. Uroboros and Spectrum had built their

PART II

A New Chapter in Art Glass Manufacturing

How a baghouse works1 Furnace exhaust enters the baghouse via a system of ducting, located on the left side of the structure.

2 The furnace exhaust then travels through a series of filtering bags within this structure, to filter out particulate contained in the exhaust. The particulate is then knocked off of the bags via a compressed-air pulse jet. The particulate material falls down the hopper and is collected in a super sack. The filtered air is then sent to the clean side of the chamber, and released through an exhaust duct.

3 The lower portion of the baghouse contains the super sack, where the filtered material is deposited for disposal by a certified waste-services company.

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factories in what had been depressed economic zones in their respective cities. They had taken scruffy, battered warehouse space and developed beautiful, functional businesses, which were now located in highly coveted zip codes with higher taxes. Seismic and fire regulations in Portland were having an effect on warehousing operations. At Uroboros, more floor space would be required to house raw material and finished goods because height restrictions were changing but the warehouse was already feeling quite tight. The cost of doing business in their respective locations was growing exponentially above the now stagnant market demand for their products.

All business owners try to keep an “exit plan” in place whether they’re thinking of selling or closing, moving or retooling. Passing the torch in such a specialized field is a complicated decision requiring a extensive transition and there were already many difficult factors to consider before the environmental challenges began in 2016.

Many were under the impression that due to its size and pre-existing baghouse structures, Spectrum would be in the strongest position to deal with the myriad challenges facing the industry. However, due to its long struggle with healthy production levels, Spectrum’s size had actually become its greatest weakness. Of course the new environmental inquiry was a part of Spectrum’s decision to close. But it was really more of a single link in a long chain of issues, not the leading cause. The sensationalism of the issue at hand made it easy for the community to blame the environmental investigation, but in truth, Spectrum had been dealing with a crushing level of economic uncertainty for years.

Given the mega cost to retool or move the company, Spectrum’s owners were absolutely sure there was no way anyone else in the country was big enough or crazy enough to buy them. After considerable, excruciating deliberation, the best thing they felt they could do for their employees was to finish production as they could, and close up shop. The announcement on May 11, 2016 was a shock to us all, and no less so to one of their largest customers—Oceanside Glasstile.

Oceanside Glasstile has been a customer of Spectrum Glass for over twenty years, leveraging Spectrum’s art glass to produce their Devotion collection. It wasn’t only stained glass artists who were busy worrying about which manufacturers might absorb this or that part of Spectrum’s product line and how the infamously smooth, consistent product might change—Oceanside was immediately wondering how they could find a way to keep getting Spectrum exactly as it has always been. They almost immediately wondered if it would be possible for them to make the product themselves…

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As part of their investigation into the sale, Kyle and Craig Barker introduced the OGT owners to Eric Lovell. For any purchase and transition to be successful, the System 96 partnership would need to be part of it. Lovell had thought of trying to sell Uroboros before, but he was now leaning in the same direction as Spectrum: no one could possibly have the cash flow, passion, and energy required to brave the ‘elements’ and invest what would be necessary to buy his company. But Vince Moiso, OGT Business Development Officer, says that the possibility came up almost in their first meeting.

There were a lot of issues to be considered and tackled with both companies individually: moving a factory, honoring a heritage, proprietary equipment, confidential recipes, historic partnerships, the list goes on and on. Businesses

often spend in excess of a year or more negotiating, exploring, and fine tuning deals of this complexity. Time which simply wasn’t available in this case. And this, perhaps, was the greatest challenge posed by the environmental crusade suddenly dropped on the doorstep of our manufacturers.

On September 22, 2016, five-and-a-half months after announcing their pending closure, Spectrum announced that they had “finalized the sale of Spectrum Glass and our System 96 brands, equipment, and formulas to world-renowned glass manufacturer Oceanside Glasstile in Carlsbad, CA.” Five days later, on the 28th of September, Uroboros sent out a press release that they were going to shut down operations at the end of the year. While they did hope to be able to sell, nothing was certain. Negotiations had just barely begun with Oceanside—there was no possible way

FACING PAGE:The last ribbon of glass to come down the line at the Spectrum Glass factory in Woodinville, WA, October 7, 2016.

THIS PAGE, TOP:The Spectrum lehr being unloaded from the trucks at the new Oceanside facility November 28, 2016.

BOTTOM:

The lehr before and after refurbishment in its new home at the Oceanside Glasstile facility in Tijuana, Mexico.

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to assure the public that any agreement could be reached. While Oceanside was suspected to be a potential buyer because they had successfully come to an agreement with Spectrum, it was also unknown whether their resources and energy could effectively stretch to also acquire the Uroboros line. Almost exactly three months later, on the 27th of December, Oceanside Glasstile and Uroboros announced that they were successful in coming to an agreement and complete sale.

For all of that paperwork minutia to get worked through in under six months with each company, under nine months in its entirety, speaks volumes to the energy, commitment, and passion of the Oceanside, Spectrum, and Uroboros teams. It is a breathtaking example of how well they have already worked together to accomplish complicated, momentous

tasks. Mountains of paperwork have already been scaled. Ground has already been broken at the Oceanside facility to make way for a whole new age of glass making. •

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By Megan McElfresh

Now 25 years old, Oceanside Glasstile was founded in the same glass culture that started Uroboros and Spectrum Glass. Boyce Lundstrom, Jon Stokesbary, Don Pettey, and Sean Gildea decided to start a business crafting luxury

tile from glass. One of the founders of Oceanside is instantly recognizable to us: Boyce Lundstrom, one of the founders of Bullseye Glass Company, and a huge force in glass fusing education, wanted to base the company in Portland, Oregon. (It sometimes seems like we’re only ever six degrees of separation away from Boyce!) Stokesbary and Pettey were California surfers and were unwilling to move away from San Diego. Eventually, the men arrived at an agreement and in 1992, they launched the business two blocks from the beach in Oceanside.

Looking through early images of the company’s production efforts is remarkably similar to early images of Uroboros and Spectrum. Probably because, at the end of the day, everybody is just making glass. One of Oceanside’s first big breaks came early on when they were asked to replicate vintage tile for the world-famous Roman Pool at Hearst Castle. (Which gives me a sense of déjà vu in line with the journey of Lovell and Uroboros needing to recreate Tiffany glass for restoration.)

When most of the original Oceanside founders retired, Sean Gildea stayed on and became president and Johnny Marckx was named executive vice president. The company continued to grow and twelve years ago, they found themselves in need of a much larger factory than what was readily available.

Pre-2008 market changes, Oceanside had over 500 employees. And a significant number of those employees had always commuted back and forth across the border. When the company began to look for space to house a bigger factory, the same market and community issues facing our

glass manufacturers today encouraged them to consider a location closer to their workers: gentrification, environmental requirements, and the costs of global competition.

Oceanside and TijuanaDeciding to build a factory in Mexico doesn’t necessarily make your life cheaper and easier, despite much opinion to the contrary. When Mexico is in your backyard… well, it’s still your backyard. Tijuana and San Diego are intensely inter-dependent communities in uncountable ways. Oceanside needed an efficient, state-of-the-art facility, and on the United States side of the border they were having difficulty finding a location that wouldn’t take issue with the industrial-looking, visually-unappealing ‘bag-houses’ and ‘exhaust stacks.’ To keep the manufacturing facility in the United States would

PART III

Oceanside Glass (and Tile)

FACING PAGE, TOP:Oceanside Glasstile founders, ca. 1994: (from left) Boyce Lundstrom, Sean Gildea, Don Pettey, and Jon Stokesbary.

BOTTOM:Oceanside's first three locations. THIS PAGE:

An early success for Oceanside, replicating the vintage tile for the Roman Pool at Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA.

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mean displacing the entire company and training an entirely new workforce. Or, they could build a new facility locally. There just happened to be a border crossing on the way. Global competition has been a force to be reckoned with since the company’s founding and by locating in Mexico, they were allowing themselves to stay healthy and competitive.

There would be some changes in their environmental considerations with the move: as a maquiladora (a Mexican assembly plant that imports materials and equipment from companies in the U.S. and exports back finished products), Oceanside Glasstile is held to higher standards than a Mexican company, and as a global company, must meet global environmental benchmarks to stay competitive. They still pay tariffs on the movement of material back and forth across the border. At least once a year, Oceanside staff must prove need and get an approval permit for many of the chemicals they use from a ranking general in the military. (They will need to get more permits signed now to incorporate the additional chemicals and other raw materials to be used in the production of the Spectrum and Uroboros line. It’s totally fine, the government is just making sure they’re definitely making glass and not something more… explosive.)

It was a big decision to make, but in many ways, it was a no-brainer because it comes back to people, and that’s where Oceanside has made something really special. Glassmaking’s not easy. (We should know.) It’s a process that demands incredible attention to detail, even the boring, repetitive, monotonous, tedious details require obsessive quality control. It’s very difficult to accomplish building a glassmaking factory of OGT’s scale in the United States. To find a workforce large enough, willing to work the hours required, in front of blazingly hot furnaces, when you have global competition to consider, is very challenging. The owners at Oceanside were adamant

that they did not want to be an importer; this wasn’t a widget they could send overseas. In their first fifteen years, they had already developed incredible relationships with spectacular employees that understood and appreciated their culture. The enormous benefit of building in Tijuana, was that they were literally still in their own backyard.

Oceanside Glasstile has always had an enormous commitment to the environment; their dedication to sustainability and stewardship is, quite simply, unreal. Glass is not an environmentally friendly material to produce when you consider the energy costs alone that it takes to create this amazing substance. But the team at OGT has made turning pre- and post-consumer waste into beautiful tile a work of art in and of itself. Their mantra, “From Curbside to Oceanside” describes their dedication to transforming glass into high-end, high-quality design materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. Their production process recycles over two million pounds of post consumer bottle glass into cullet every year from curbside recycling programs.

Any hazardous waste produced is required to be exported back to the United States, so Oceanside is committed to not only reducing their waste, but also in keeping their operation as clean as possible to make any waste disposal needs as safe as possible. In fact, they have implemented a co-processing

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FACING PAGE, TOP:Oceanside Glasstile expansion underway in Tijuana, Mexico.

CENTER:Left, Transition work underway at Oceanside Glasstile in Tijuana. Right, Oceanside employees participate in numerous volunteer and philanthropic activities.

BOTTOM:Spectrum (left) and Uroboros (right) palettes laid out on the Oceanside work benches during pilot and roll-out production planning.

Oceanside Glasstile's production process recycles over two million pounds of post consumer bottle glass into cullet every year from curbside recycling programs.

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partnership to almost completely eliminate any of their manufacturing waste from going to a landfill.

And this process of responsible stewardship doesn’t end with their production process. The energy they put into their people and the people in their community on both sides of the border is positively inspirational. After talking with people

throughout the company, it all seems to boil down to a very simple concept: making the world a more beautiful place. And happy, healthy people are beautiful people. Led by their own inner core of owners, every employee donates several days worth of time over the course of the year to any number of charitable activities. They train in groups to run or bike for a cause, volunteer to clean up orphanages, build homes for low-income families, or work with the elderly.

Within their own company, they keep a doctor and a nurse on staff at the factory for their employees year-round. Oceanside sponsors Health Days at the factory where they make nurses, doctors, dentists, and other medical services available to their employee’s families. They also help collect and provide school supplies for the families of their workers. They provide food, transportation services and education programs for their workers on site. No social issue seems too mundane for them to try to tackle and it works on every level. The factory has less than 1% turnover a year and many employees have been with the company for almost their entire history. (Another thing they have in common with Spectrum and Uroboros.) Comparatively, the other key businesses in their area have approximately 10% turnover every month.

Socially, the team at Oceanside, at the current size of about 350 employees small, still operate like one family. Seemingly immune to ego, they function as one incredibly passionate team. Perfectly prepared to be skeptical, I found myself blown

away by how dedicated and energetic every single person on the Oceanside team has been. I felt like I was instantly friends with the sales and production staff and like I had known the owners forever. There is usually something of a pyramid structure to a company which gets more pronounced as a company grows. In the case of Oceanside, I feel like they’re more of a bicycle wheel: a small central core of leaders work in harmony to make big decisions which are carried out by a huge web of very creative, very dedicated, bicycle spokes.

The Mega Glass-Making TeamA major key to a successful acquisition of any kind is having the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with the right skill sets, and the right attitudes. In and of itself, quite a challenge. And we haven’t even added any numbers to the process yet. Less than 10% of acquisitions actually make it to a final agreement, let alone into a successful transition. Not only is this mega-acquisition exciting because it’s actually happening, it exceeds expectations on each point listed above.

If you’re still reading this, you’ve probably already noted a lot of similarities between these three companies whether it’s their passion, a love for their people, a love of glass, where they get their materials, a previous factory move, previous partnerships, or just having known Boyce Lundstrum. Now add the transition team: Oceanside’s youth, passion, and energy; Uroboros chemistry, artistry and flexibility; Spectrum’s patented technology and experience; and you have one amazing recipe for success.

The management teams and many of the experienced employees from both Spectrum and Uroboros have been a huge part of the transition process, and quite a few people are opting to move to Southern California or do long distance commuting for the next six months to a year or so, to be a part of the continuing journey of the products they’ve spent a lifetime with. Essentially, what exists right now, is a dream team of a huge amount of skill, coupled with an enormous amount of passion, equaling an unprecedented level of manpower dedicated to the move and successful re-launch of the Spectrum and Uroboros products and legacies.

Which is really the movement of equipment.Which, if either company was going to survive, was going

to have to happen anyway.

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Do you know how to move a furnace? You can’t. You have to rebuild them. Two miles or two thousand miles makes no difference at all.

Transition, Training and BuildoutThe first step in the entire transition is training. While the equipment was still running at the Spectrum facility, 30 people from the Tijuana factory came to Spectrum for a seriously intense 6 weeks of training and then assisted with equipment disassembly, labeling, and packing for transport. In January, a crew of 12 from Tijuana trained at the Uroboros factory and helped to shut down and disassemble that equipment in early February.

The paperwork over, the first news blasts out, training was really the first time the separate groups had come together as a whole team. During negotiations, not even company employees in management positions knew about the potential sales to protect the unique interests of the buyer and seller alike. In talking with supervisors from the companies after these intense training periods, they all agree that there is a magic that happens when motivated, high-caliber workers come together with experienced, educated glass manufacturers. Foreman and training staff have remarked on the enjoyable mix of culture and challenge during those several weeks. Everyone seems

just thrilled with everyone. Hearing about it makes one want to hop on the next plane and be a part of it!

While training was underway, Oceanside was on the move to get new infrastructure in place for the soon-to-be-moving equipment. Storage space was emptied and moved to make way for expansion. Additional water service and electricity is needed for the new furnaces. New gas lines. Space for the equipment, space for raw materials, space for inventory, space for quality control and cold end manufacturing, the list goes on and on. The Oceanside team is working with incredible speed, 7 days a week to prepare the site, on two consecutive days pouring upwards of 70 yards of concrete to build the new space required.

In a testament to the OGT commitment and teamwork embedded in their culture, Johnny Marckx says there was “immediate recognition of awesomeness—this team thrives on challenges and they didn’t flinch for a second. Instead it was sort of like, ‘Well, we put a man on the moon—how hard can it be? Let’s build some furnaces!’ “

Equipment is moving to Mexico in stages. Spectrum’s furnaces and equipment first, followed by the Uroboros equipment over a month later. One of the first things Oceanside had to do was order a new baghouse to be constructed. In addition, they’re going to repurpose, refurbish, and upgrade one of the Spectrum’s baghouses this summer. System 96 Frit

THESE PAGES:Activity at Oceanside Glasstile's Tijuana facility.

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Oceanside Glasstile staff celebrating an award received from the San Diego Business Journal in 2015.

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Oceanside’s youth, passion, and energy, plus Uroboros' chemistry, artistry and flexibility, plus Spectrum’s patented technology and experience...equals one amazing recipe for success!

68 STAINED GLASS | SPRING 2017

and Noodle production will continue at Uroboros until late April and then that equipment will be cooled, packed and shipping to Tijuana as well.

A lot of equipment is getting long-denied TLC in the move. For instance, the lehrs at both Spectrum and Uroboros have been running non-stop for decades. While they’re off, just cleaning them and giving them a fresh coat of paint brings a whole different atmosphere to the factory floor. Eric Lovell pointed out that while it’s difficult to see equipment disappearing from his factory floor, those feelings are offset by the excitement of seeing that same equipment begin put back to work in the new factory. (The Uroboros lehr was used when Eric bought it: the over 90-foot-long annealing oven is over 60 years old and hasn’t had a break in 33 years.)

It takes an incredible amount of time for raw materials and necessary “back-up supplies” to be ordered and delivered. Kilnbrick can take in excess of eight months to arrive, so both Uroboros and Spectrum Glass Companies had a full stash of kilnbrick to use in future rebuilds and repairs. That brick was shipped down to Tijuana first thing so that the new furnaces could be constructed right away. However, it’s crucial to have spare parts for the furnaces on hand at all times. As such, even before the new furnaces are turned on, the spare parts stash has already been ordered!

The remainder of both Uroboros and Spectrum’s raw materials were used during final product runs and then in training. Now Oceanside orders their own raw materials

(from the same places in the United States where it has always been sourced) for pilot production to begin in early April. Now the work crews from the Northwest are down in the Tijuana factory working on transition and training. After long years in old, well-loved buildings, the newly transitioned staff often remarks on how clean and well-lit the new factory is. Everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. The drive. The tenacity. The passion. There is no end to the plethora of positivity.

Vince Moiso is all admiration and respect for the teamwork he is seeing every day: “This is a textbook case of the perfect synergy—it has allowed everyone to move very quickly. We’re all so humbled by the opportunity to grow and to be a part of something so much bigger than ourselves.”

Pilot Production and Growth Talking to Lovell and Barker they feel similar about how things are going: it’s bittersweet to be at this stage in their company’s histories, but it’s a thrill to be a part of the foundation of the next chapter. It’s exhilarating to see their company’s equipment set up in a new facility, surrounded by the youth and energy of a company that so delights in the challenge.

It doesn’t matter if I’m talking to staff from Uroboros, Spectrum, or OGT; it doesn’t matter whether they’ve been away from the factory for a few days or a few weeks, they all say the same thing: “Every time I go to the factory, I’m blown away by the change and growth. It’s so exciting. We are all so excited.”

It turns out, the concerns about whether or not the incredible glass of Uroboros and Spectrum will be available in the years to come is not a question of “if” but “when!”

The pilot roll-out of Spectrum is planned for April. Oceanside is changing a few things about the continuous flow furnace design, transitioning to a system of larger day tanks that will then feed the mixing tank and melt the glass together. This will help make production more scalable and sensitive to changing industry needs, but it produces exactly the same glass the industry has come to depend on. All three companies had a global presence individually which was impacted differently in 2016 and has left a variety of gaps and needs in the market that will have to be met efficiently and economically. The roll-outs have been as carefully planned as possible to respect the urgency created by those market gaps. Oceanside is also being

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considerate of creating the easiest possible transition for the historic supply chain of global wholesalers and distributors. If at all possible, the only change for distributors will be the shipping address. Otherwise, color numbers and descriptions are all anticipated to remain the same.

Since day one, the Oceanside Glasstile team has drowned themselves with data. Due to the urgency and break in production, there is has been little time to get to know customers, suppliers and end users. Since the announcement of the sale of Spectrum and Uroboros, Oceanside has been flooded by and thrilled to be hosting visits at least once, but often twice a week from industry companies eager to get to know them. Everyone seems to walk away stunned by the passion and effort being spent to tackle the challenge of this move and acquisition. If they can’t come to Oceanside, Oceanside has tried to go to them. If they can’t meet face-to-face, Oceanside has tried to reach out via phone or electronic communications.

“Dizzy with data,” is what Vince Moiso says. Historic production and sale data has all been mined and analyzed, and conversations with distributors worldwide have been intense. Oceanside could easily do nothing but produce Spectrum clears for the first month there are so many back orders. A big difference that Oceanside is facing is the difference in the basic cycle of creation between the sheet glass industry and the glass tile industry. Oceanside’s glass tile is made to order. Uroboros and Spectrum have historically made their product to stock.

Uroboros smaller, hand-cast sheets match Oceanside’s historic production style more closely and will make for an easier roll-out. In the meantime, by the end of April, OGT is hoping to be melting 27,000 pounds of glass per day to make about 14,000 square feet of Spectrum glass. Every. Day. Until June, when they double those numbers by bringing the second Spectrum furnace system online.

As the pilot production period normalizes and becomes the new standard production cycle, Oceanside will transition into their next period of growth. The glass tile company is no stranger to having a 500+ employee base. Presently, they have about 350 employees, but over the next 18-24 months, they’re expecting to hire about 150 additional team members across a huge variety of processes: batching and manufacturing, order fulfillment, process engineers, chemists, equipment and maintenance, purchasing, quality control, project management, customer service and sales, marketing, warehousing and inventory.

How many Uroboros and Spectrum employees will relocate permanently is not yet known, nor can it be. Right now a smooth, successful transition is everyone’s focus. Getting all the way through build-out, pilot production, the tremendous color rotation to fill the current materials gap, and building up inventory will take Oceanside flying through 2017 and well into 2018.

Excitement for the Artistic ChallengeIt’s the last week in March and Kat Hartley is back in Portland at Uroboros from the final roll-out planning meetings in Southern California and her most recent visit to the Tijuana plant: “Oceanside is so young! So energetic!” She exclaims. “It’s the best move we could have. The Oceanside team is so passionate, so excited, they’re going to fit right in. As for production, it’s really the best of both worlds: The economic efficiency of the Spectrum system and the nimble hand-rolling Uroboros system all under one roof.”

Right now they recognize that they just need to get product online but the natural result of the convergence of the entire system will be innovation. How will the tile and glass productions interact? Will they play with variation in textures and thickness? What color developments will result? What happens if some of Spectrums designs are hand-rolled on the Uroboros equipment... and some of Uroboros designs are made on the Spectrum equipment? As the materials gap closes and production normalizes, the Oceanside team is already excited about the creative possibilities ahead. But realistically, right now, they are just trying to get production into full swing as quickly as possible. Some distributors depend on Spectrum glass for 90% of their product sales. To say that there are users globally that are barely hanging on by their fingernails isn’t much of a stretch.

In the end, Spectrum’s size worked against them, but Oceanside is a different kind of big. Flexible and diversified, but focused. Once the product lines are conquered in their original formats, Oceanside will have the ability to expand the creative license on a solid foundation: press, cast, blown, rolled, pulled—every possible creation solution under one roof. The Oceanside Glasstile team feels a huge sense of gratitude and honor for the future they now protect and the history they are now a part of. They are now the keepers of the recipe book. They have the physical standards to go with the mixes. Mixing notes. Experience and direction. Flip, poke, fold, twist. New glass, restoration. Education and innovation.

Are you still worried there will be something different with the water down there and that it will just never be the same? Perhaps you’re right. But whatever subtle product changes occur will likely be far outweighed by the advantages of the new manufacturing facility. At the start of Fall 2016, the stained-glass industry feared it was losing a giant portion of the materials we had all come to depend on. It turns out we have been blessed with a fresh new start and what is likely to be a period of inspirational experimentation and innovation. •

Megan McElfresh (McElf ) is a third-generation stained glass craftswoman who has studied creativity via glass her entire life. In 2011, she founded her own glass company, McElf GlassWorks, in Buffalo, NY.