Mail Tribune

When Jess Tudor developed a new method for moving spa covers, his employer shrugged off the suggestion.

That was a decade and 80,000 spa-cover lifts ago for Tudor and his Coverplay Inc., which migrated to the Rogue Valley from Livermore, Calif., six years ago.

Tudor studied engineering for two years before leaving college to start making things. During his tenure with Caldera Spas, he became convinced that hot tub users weren't getting nearly the use out of their spas as they might if the cover were easily removed and replaced.

"I had a prototype I knew would work, but it needed some refinement," Tudor says. "The idea was good, but getting the installers to buy it was the challenge."

Advertisement

Spurned by his employer, Tudor left his job in October 1996 and began selling his spa cover movers. He was pleasantly surprised when he went to the Aqua Show for pool and spa dealers in Las Vegas in January 1997.

"I didn't think the industry would find it interesting," he says. "The idea was to overcome objections, which were typically aesthetic. Do you really want to put it on your new $7,000 spa?"

But spa users and makers don't always think alike.

Coverplay sold about 900 units the first year and recorded sales of about $500,000. In 2003, Coverplay sold 12,500 units, and last year it sold 11,000 with revenues totaling more than $1 million. Although his products are sold throughout the United States and have found their way to Europe, Tudor's market to date has been mom-and-pop spa retailers and installers. Only recently has he hired a marketing director to spread sales to reach more of the nation's 6,400 retailers.

"With our marketing campaign we're beginning, our sales could be five to six times what we are now," Tudor estimates. "We've been a good success story already, even without an ad campaign."

Tudor moved his operation from California in 2000, to both fulfill a long-time vision to move to the Rogue Valley and be closer to his parents, who previously moved here. His employees, however, stayed behind, and he spent six months training a new staff at his former Crater Lake Highway location. In July 2003, Tudor bought the 9,600-square-foot former Cal-Ore Mechanical Contractors for $378,750 and then remodeled the plant for another year to suit his eight-person operation.

Coverplay has introduced its third-generation lifter, called the Cover Pro, that inserts on the sides of the cover. The previous Cover Up model had a metal bar that went across the length of the cover. Both models fold over, arc back and then slide down so the covers can't get knocked or blown on a spa user's head.

Tudor says a former Sundance spa manager decided that was a key feature after getting hit over the head by another lift brand that simply stacked the cover in a vertical position next to his tub.

Tudor has partnered with Northwest Hot Tub Covers, run by Tom and Linda Ryan of Eagle Point, in the new design.

In a matter of months, Linda Ryan says, their company has sold nearly 50 of the lifters in the company's Northern California and Southern Oregon market.

"I really think the design will catch on," Ryan says. "Everyone that comes into our shop is ordering the new design. I don't think it will simply be a fad."

Northwest Hot Tub Covers sells the new cover, for tubs 8 feet and under, for $370 and the Cover Pro device is $199 installed. Prices for the Cover Pro vary from $159 to $299 depending on the region.

"My hope is that the Cover Pro will make our old product go the way of the dinosaur," Tudor says. "We don't want to raise the bar any more, we want to eliminate it."

Beyond that, he's developing a mechanized spa cover remover.

"There is an insatiable desire for new products," he says.

Send People in Business items to Greg Stiles, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501, or e-mail to business@mailtribune.com.