WHATCOM TOP 100: NO. 84 ECX
Rose Vogel, director of human resources for 34 employees at ECX, presents workshops on HR topics around the area. She also is a new guest columnist for Business Pulse on behalf of Mt. Baker Chapter of the Society of Human Resources Professionals (page 78).
basically broke even. Because his wife, Grace, is a pharmacist registered in Canada, they sought a place to live near a northern border. In November of 2010 they found Blaine randomly on a map, moved, and Furre set up shop. “It was by the ocean,” he said, “so we figured it must be nice.” After a year in Custer, the commerce moved to the downtown Bellingham location that now is a retail store, and soon outgrew it. They moved to the expansive warehouses off Slater Road. Prideful of operating as a “green” company, EcigExpress handles all of its own packaging and shipping. Their largest building, 6,400 square feet, contains the office, customer service phone center, shipping, lab, and hundreds of shelves lined with vapor flavors. The smaller warehouse contains 2,400 square feet of inventory that arrives frequently in fully-loaded semi30 | BUSINESSPULSE.COM
trailer trucks. Materials come from all over the world, mostly China by boat, but also Germany, Italy, and Poland from among thousands of flavor companies.
“(Regulations) probably will change the way we all do business… The little guys will get pushed out. But I’m not so worried as most others… because we don’t make our living manufacturing. We have a (flavors) niche.” –Timothy Furre
Ivan Furre, Timothy’s brother, serves as a vice-president in the company and oversees marketing, sales, and business strategy while continuing work on a PhD. “I help grow the business and open new stores,” Ivan Furre said. He also manages social media, especially in tracking developments in regulations. The company’s growth strategy is “diversification,” Timothy Furre said. “We have to ensure a variety of resources, in case one of our retail stores goes belly up. The strategy for the retail is that every new store supports two other stores.” In a burgeoning young industry that already faces serious overhauling because of proposed federal regulations, EcigExpress distinguishes itself, Furre said, by having the widest variety of flavors and other materials and, through mass purchasing power, lower pricing.