Product shows concrete results for Baker business

Jeff Hayes uses a roller to define lines between wood barn board design tamped into a Miracote concrete overlay.

By ED MERRIMAN

Baker City Herald

With the recession taking a bite out of construction equipment rentals, the owner and managers at Eastern Oregon Rental and Sales started looking into new products and they wound up adding a high-tech cement coating that’s selling like hotcakes.

“We are seeing more interest in this Miracote product than anything else we have carried,” said Dan Domey, general manager of the Baker City branch of Eastern Oregon Rental and Sales, which also operates a store in La Grande and is in the process of opening a third store in the Hermiston-Pendleton area later this year.

“I like the artistic part of it. You can mess with the textures and colors all you want,” said Kevin Cornelius, owner of Contemporary Concrete Designs, which specializes in the new generation of decorative concrete overlays for floors, countertops, window sills and shelving.

“I like the practicality of the Miracote. Some coatings are all show and no go, but this is durable and useful,” he said.

Cornelius has more than 17 years in the concrete business, including 15 during the boom times in Bend, and nearly three  years in Baker City, where he’s enjoying the friendly people and less hectic lifestyle.

Cornelius, along with Mark DeLong of Rafter M. Construction and other Baker-area contractors, honed their skills mixing colors and applying a thin layer of Miracote over the gray floors at Eastern Oregon Rentals and Sales this week, under the direction of Jeff Hayes, an independent manufacturer’s representative for Miracote.

“What I like about this new Miracote is you can overlay it over not-so-pretty concrete,” DeLong said.

He said he’s used other overlay products didn’t adhere well to deteriorating concrete floors.

Mike Valentine and Kenny Bell on the Eastern Oregon Rental and Sales staff also attended Hayes’ training session to learn more about the process so they can explain and demonstrate it to customers.

Bell said some customers have hired contractors to apply Miracote to century-old concrete floors. 

Hayes said the product is ideal for restoring and beautifying concrete and patios, wood decks, Formica countertops and other surfaces.

Miracote was originally designed as a protective coating for aircraft carriers, and later was expanded to civilian uses such as parking garages, Hayes said.

It’s only recently that Miracote overlays have been developed for both indoor and exterior uses in homes and businesses, Hayes said.

“In this tight economy, instead of spending lots of money to tear up old concrete and haul it to a landfill, and then pouring new concrete, people can put on an overlay product designed for interiors or exteriors,” Hayes said.

Domey, who spent part of his childhood in Baker City while his father, Richard Domey taught school here from 1964 through 1976, said after owning a fitness center in Hillsboro and working for corporations, he jumped at the chance to come back because he always considered Baker his hometown and he wanted to help Cory Braseth retool and revive the Baker City branch of the rental business.

“I was a complete workaholic. I needed to slow down a little bit, but at the same time help Cory build his business,” Domey said. “Now I’m taking it all in, including some steelhead fishing.

He’s also enjoying getting re-acquainted with people he went to school with through the seventh grade, as well as his father’s former students.

Before he took over more than two years ago as general manager, Domey said the Baker City branch’s revenues were about 90 percent from rentals of equipment compared to 10 percent sales.

Since his return to Baker City, Domey said he and his staff have worked hard to bolster sales of products like Miracote, power tools and other items, and revenues are now split about 60 percent rentals and 40 percent sales.

Domey said that transition has put the company on a stronger financial footing.

“People can rent things and buy things, and we have this educational component, so people can learn cutting edge technology, like we’re showing to the contractors this week,” Domey said. “Being diverse is critical to roll with the economy.”