BPI Medical was founded in 1976 by Ben and Janneke Overmars, who emigrated from Holland and began a modest medical equipment enterprise in their backyard. Their specialty was surgical instrument repair and sharpening.

Through a series of expansions, the business quickly grew and in 1993, BPI expanded its repair services. These expansions consisted of diversifying their repair services to include pneumatic and electric handpiece repairs. The continued growth was fueled by the hiring of several O.E.M.-trained technicians from MicroAire and Zimmer/Hall. Two years later one of BPI Medical's largest competitors, Olympus, closed several of its U.S. repair centers. Again, several key personnel acquisitions allowed BPI Medical to expand its repair services to include the repair of flexible and rigid endoscopes.

Today, the company has more than 55 employees and just expanded their Fife, Washington facility. They have full-time sales representatives covering the entire west coast.

"We have four business units: One that manufactures and modifies spinal and orthopedic instruments for major OEMs; another buys and sells surplus and pre-owned equipment; a complete biomedical repair facility; and equipment sales of C-Arms, OR tables, endoscopes, and other instruments and equipment," explained Robert Overmars, Ben and Janneke's son and the president of this DOTmed 100 company.

Bob is an electrical engineering graduate of Central Washington University who worked for Boeing before being recruited to the family business 18 years ago.

"I like entrepreneurially growing the business by sales and I like helping customers," he said, not really missing his engineering days. "The design-build teams come to me on occasion to brainstorm ideas, but otherwise I focus on the business side," he said.

Last month the company expanded by 5,000 square feet to house their fastest-
growing division, the selling of refurbished medical equipment. This addition included larger warehousing and office space, building a larger paint booth, and the expansion of the biomed repair area. This area is dedicated to refurbishing C-Arms and OR tables. The company now has covers over 20,000 square feet.

Of course, Mom and Dad still come by quite a bit to check on their baby--the business that is. "Dad comes down and procures material for his own machine shop at home," Bob said of Ben.

BPI Medical is a one-stop shopping medical company with services including new/pre-owned and refurbished equipment sales, clinical supply sales, flexible and rigid scopes, instruments, biomedical repair and custom manufacturing. BPI Medical is also a proud authorized repair facility for Codman Johnson & Johnson, and is ISO compliant through Johnson & Johnson.

Read about the DOTmed 100 companies in the February issue of DOTmed Business News, now online.

More Voices