Rayovac: 50 Years of Innovation in Portage, WI and Customer-Focused Initiatives

Interview with Kevin Kouba and Dave Young, Rayovac

Carolyn Smaka: Dave and Kevin, Welcome.  Rayovac is the number one selling hearing aid battery in the world, made in the U.S.A., and your Portage, Wisconsin plant just celebrated its 50 year anniversary. That is quite a milestone! Dave, what changes have you seen during your time at Rayovac?

Dave Young:  I have been with Rayovac for 22 years.  When the Portage plant opened 50 years ago in 1963, it was making mercuric oxide cells, which have about 50% mercury in them.  Over the years, the battery technology changed and our manufacturing technology adapted as a result, enabling us to grow and prosper.  To put some numbers around it, we were making 3,000 cells a day during our first year, and and now we make in the millions per day. 

Carolyn: Wow, that’s hundreds of millions per year!

Dave:  Yes.  Between the Portage and Washington plants, we will have surpassed 10 billion cells sometime next year.  The other thing that’s important about having manufacturing here in the U.S. when it comes to hearing aid batteries, is that it’s a key to freshness. Because we are manufacturing here in the United States, we can get our product to market faster, which means it is fresher.  Our major competitors are all imported. 

Carolyn:  You have also received accolades for your environment initiatives at the Portage plant. 

Dave:  Yes, we’ve taken significant efforts to improve the plant’s practices to reduce our carbon footprint, such as by reducing hazardous waste and focusing on energy conservation.  These practices have brought our carbon footprint down almost 25% since 2009 when we put the metrics in place. At the 2012 In Business Sustainability Awards Program, the Portage plant won the Eco-Efficiency Initiative of the Year Award in recognition of these efforts. These are metrics that we watch year over year.  We have other projects in line for the coming years to continue to move the metrics in the right direction.

Rayovac’s Portage plant is celebrating 50 years of operation.

Carolyn: Kevin, you have also been with Rayovac for more than 20 years.

Kevin Kouba:  Yes I celebrated 23 years with Rayovac April Fool’s day of this year, which says a lot about my career. 

[laughter]

On a serious note, Dave and I are just a few of many employees who have had very long careers with Rayovac.  The employee who has been with us the longest just celebrated his 47^th year with Rayovac. We have a very skilled, trained workforce and staff that understand this business, because they have been at it for a long time.  We apply all of that experience and knowledge as we continually move forward into even better technologies.

As our partners, the hearing device manufacturers, develop new innovative products to address hearing loss, we put our resources into developing battery technology to ensure that those devices are powered in the manner in which they need to be powered.

Carolyn: I always thought a battery was a battery until you opened my eyes to the research and development side of the battery business. What is new with your Pro Line brand?

Kevin:  As you know, it is not just about the battery, but the whole program that supports our customers – the hearing care professionals.  That said, we have made upgrades in our zinc air product in 2014, and we have some exciting new technology that we are working on that will launch in 2015. We are also now shipping a new full color imprint on our Pro line brand.  This is where a customer’s information is printed on the package in full color.  

Carolyn: Speaking of your customers, Rayovac is known for having close relationships with its customers.

Kevin:  Yes, I was at an industry function recently and I was reminded of that.  I met a customer who has been using Rayovac since the early ‘60s, since right around the same time the Portage plant opened.  He came up to me and asked if I knew his original sales rep. After all these years, he had remembered his rep by name and was asking about him.  I think that is a testament to our company, our products, and to our employees past and present.  It also is one of the things that makes this business fun for us. You can develop long-term relationships with customers, which is not possible in a lot of businesses today. We are heavily invested not only financially, but emotionally, in the hearing industry.  When you work with us, it is more about just getting a great battery; it is all the other services and programs we offer to support you and help you build your practice.

Carolyn: It’s been great catching up with you both.  Thanks again for your time.

For more information, visit www.rayovac.com or the Rayovac Expo Page on AudiologyOnline.