Milliken says it can save taxpayers money

SPARTANBURG -- About 10 percent of the 8,419 bridges owned by South Carolina are structurally deficient, according to state highway officials.

A Spartanburg-based corporation with a legacy in textiles, Milliken & Co., thinks it can help with the problem.

Milliken has been focused on inventing since at least 1945, when it opened its first research office in Clemson. It moved its headquarters to Spartanburg in 1958.

Today, the company has expanded far beyond conventional textiles. Its global network of 39 factories makes a wide variety of high-tech fabrics, floor coverings, composites, chemicals and cords used in different ways by numerous industries.

For the past three years, Milliken has been marketing a portfolio of advanced material products as one way for the nation to address its aging infrastructure, including roads, bridges and pipelines.

For bridges in need of structural strengthening, Milliken offers RenewWrap, a polymer composite re-enforced with carbon fiber. Applied with epoxy, the woven material strengthens bridges so they can bear greater loads or better withstand earthquakes, Milliken says.

The material can also save taxpayers money by extending the life of bridges, according to the company.

Milliken's Infrastructure Solutions unit also sells GeoSpray, a sprayable mortar for relining sewer and stormwater pipes without having to dig them up.

Milliken says its cement-impregnated fabric, Concrete Cloth, can be rolled out to create concrete ditches on steep slopes or other hard-to-reach places, even in the rain.

Milliken's first product for the infrastructure market was a textile sleeve called MaxCell. The company says it can triple the space that telecommunications companies have available for cable in underground conduit.

Dale Willis, a Milliken vice president and West Point graduate who runs the infrastructure unit, said the company is looking at the nation's infrastructure needs and asking, "Is there a smarter way, a more-efficient, effective way of solving some of these problems?' "

Two of Milliken's infrastructure products, Concrete Cloth and Geospray, have been approved by a quarter of state transportation departments, the company says.

In South Carolina, the Department of Transportation is evaluating Concrete Cloth for use in erosion control, said Leland Colvin, chief engineer for operations.

SCDOT so far has not approved the use of any Milliken product for strengthening bridges, Colvin said, but would be happy to talk to the company about it.

DOT always prefers to repair a bridge before incurring the cost of replacing one, he said.

"We're certainly always looking for new technology and new vendors and we'd be happy to review the product they have out there," Colvin said.

SCDOT has used increased funding over the past seven years to cut the number of structurally deficient bridges from 1,041 to the current 839, according to a recent presentation the agency made to state lawmakers.

But additional restrictions and closures are likely, DOT said in the presentation, because of a "significant number" of precast concrete bridges built on timber pile foundations.

South Carolina isn't the only state that has an issue with structurally deficient bridges.

According to a 2013 analysis by the American Society of Civil Engineers, one out of every nine bridges across the country was classified as structurally deficient.

ACQUISITIONS

A big part of Milliken's strategy to penetrate the infrastructure market has been to buy smaller companies, absorbing their technology and customers.

Milliken announced the purchase of GeoTree Technologies, a Colorado company that invented the core technology behind GeoSpray, in late 2012.

It announced two more acquisitions this year.

California-based Edge Structural Composites has lots of experience making buildings better able to withstand earthquakes.

Houston-based Pipe Wrap gives Milliken additional technology and an entrée into the business of repairing, rehabilitating and strengthening oil and natural gas pipelines. Pipe Wrap's customers include Exxon/Mobil, Shell, BP, Sunoco, Pemex and Valero, according to the company's Web site.

Terms were not disclosed for any of the deals. In fact, Willis wouldn't even say how big the acquired companies were.

He said Milliken may make more acquisitions on top of growing organically.

"We're not close to our potential," Willis said.

Milliken, however, faces entrenched competitors such as St. Louis-based Aegion Corp. that won't part with market share easily.

One Aegion unit has been relining sewer pipes since 1980, according to the publicly traded company's most recent annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Another Aegion unit has been using composites to strengthen buildings and bridges for 24 years, according to the annual report.

Like Milliken, Aegion operates around the world, spends millions of dollars on research and development each year and has been diversifying its product portfolio through strategic acquisitions.