Top fo the Chain with Brian Dickson, President BD Loops

with Brian Dickson

PRESIDENT, BD LOOPS

Brian Dickson and his father, Ted, started BD Loops in 2001 in his father’s garage. Interestingly, Brian is the “BD” in BD Loops. In 2013, Brian and his wife, Shawna, took over the operations of the company. BD Loops won the Stanton Manufacturer of the Year award in 2017 and Brian became president of the company in 2018. Read on to find out how BD Loops went from operating out of a garage to a 12,000 square foot building with over 600 distributors.

HOW DID THE COMPANY GET STARTED?

My father, Ted, and I started the company together in 2001. My father was managing an access control division at a wrought iron company and a lot of their repeat service calls on brand new gate installations were because of faulty loops. He had a background in broadcast engineering and decided to build a better loop to save the company all the lost revenue from repeat service calls.

I set the company up and manufactured the loops in his garage. Soon, we had a garage full of loops and started selling our preformed loops to distributors in our industry.

My wife, Shawna, and I took over the operations in 2013 and I became the president in 2018 when we bought my father’s shares of the company so he could focus more on his health and retire. Unfortunately, my father passed away in 2019 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He had a difficult time staying still, he always had new ideas and projects he wanted to work on. He would call us all the time with ideas he had for workstation and building improvements.

FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW WHAT A LOOP IS, CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT?

An “inductance loop” is a vehicle detection device installed in the roadway designed to detect moving metal, such as a car. In the gate industry, loops are often installed to automatically open and/or prevent closure of the gate on a vehicle. Inductance loops are used in a variety of ways and many industries ranging from detecting vehicles at traffic signals, drive thru lanes, car counting in parking lots, and even your morning freeway traffic reports are all done with loops.

IN THE BEGINNING, YOU HAD TO QUELL THE MYTH THAT AN UNTWISTED LOOP LEAD-IN WOULD CAUSE PROBLEMS. DESCRIBE THAT SITUATION AND HOW YOU OVERCAME IT.

Untwisted loops lead-ins isn’t the only loop myth we’ve worked on dispelling. There is a lot of misinformation about inductance loops and how they operate floating about. Anyone who has been in the industry long enough has probably heard quite a few of these myths: loops are pressure/weight sensors, loops only detect magnetic objects, varying guidelines on how far loops need to be placed from electrical lines, etc.

We’ve found the best way to overcome misinformation is to provide quality educational content to the industry. We have an abundance of articles and test results about inductance loops on our website: www.BDLoops.com, and we teach classes about loops at various industry events. We’ve also worked with industry associations and manufacturers to help review and provide educational content on inductance loops for training courses.

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF YOUR LOOPS?

BD Loops are preformed, saving installers time during installation, require less materials (sealant & backer rod) for installation, and offer better protection with a thick outer jacket. Each loop is tested before being packaged so you know a BD Loop is good right out of the bag. Standard and custom sized loops also ship the same day.

BD Loops has designed not just a superior loop product, but an entire loop installation system. For example, with our preformed Saw-

Cut Loops, we analyzed every step of the loop installation process from cutting, to wrapping, to the final seal.

Which is why we offer 3/16” blades which make a narrower cut vs. ¼” blades, cut faster, and require 25 percent less loop sealant.

Our Jacketed 3/16” preformed saw-cut loops offer more protection vs. single conductor insulated wires. Our loops can be installed quicker because they don’t require wrapping, twisting off the lead-in, and have built-in backer-rod in the wire’s outer jacket design. Our Saw-Cut loops also require less loop sealant because the jacket fills up a larger amount of the groove.

We offer a custom-made Loop Sealant with a formulation specifically designed for sealing loops. Our BD-LS has a quick cure time (45 minutes skin time), superior wall adhesion and flexibility, and each tube comes with a 3/16” flat sealant tip that allows the installer to seal the groove in one pass from the bottom up. We even offer tools to assist with the installation and testing devices to troubleshoot loop circuits. We keep every aspect of the loop installation and the installer’s needs in mind when designing our products.

One of the many seminars with BD Loops, providing education and resources.

IN 2016, YOU RELOCATED TO STANTON. WHERE WAS YOUR ORIGINAL LOCATION AND WHAT LED TO THE MOVE?

We were originally based out of my father’s garage in Huntington Beach, California. We moved into a shipping container on a lot when we ran out of space. In 2006, we purchased our first building in Huntington Beach, a 2,000 square foot industrial unit.

Brian working on an installation project.

We stayed in that little unit as long as we could. We built up to the ceiling and even used a box truck for additional storage space. We moved to a 4,000 square foot building in Stanton in 2015. We have run out of space at our current building and are in the process of moving to a 12,000 square foot building in Placentia, California.

Moving is never fun, but every move we made allowed us to keep growing and expanding into new markets. Our latest move is going to allow us to bring on more employees and order materials more strategically.

HOW MANY DISTRIBUTORS DO YOU HAVE AND HOW IS THE PACE OF ADDING NEW ONES IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS?

BD Loops has over 600 distributors throughout the U.S. and Canada representing several different industries including: gate, door, security, drive thru, car wash, and parking. BD Loops is an active participant at trade shows and industry events which allows us to support our distributor network by reaching new installers and supporting existing customers. We have been putting distributors on a quicker pace in recent years as we branch into new industries.

THESE ARE UNUSUAL TIMES, WITH THE COVID PANDEMIC AND SUPPLY SHORTAGES. FROM A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE ON HOW TO NAVIGATE THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES?

The pandemic supply shortages and incredible price hikes we have been dealing with are a real challenge. When the USA shut down in March of 2020, we expected disruption to our supply chain to occur but couldn’t imagine that things would be as bad as they are now. We immediately placed orders to double the amount of material we have on hand to keep our production flowing. Our main goal in the early days of the pandemic was to keep all our employees on payroll and not run out of product. The recovery has been slower than all the experts predicted, and costs and lead times keep going up. Now, we check in with our major suppliers every few weeks and discuss how the market is looking and what the current lead times are. It has been challenging planning for 12+ months in the future on all our material needs, but we’ve managed to keep our head above water. Our early material orders and open dialogues with our vendors have allowed us to make it to this point in the pandemic with only one price increase and we have not had any trouble filling orders for preformed loops with same day shipping.

I feel terrible for all the dealers in this industry with the state of the economy right now, having to figure out how to make a living when the products they need are constantly increasing in price. We have been keeping our

installers in the forefront of our mind during the pandemic; our philosophy is that if our installers are doing well, then we are doing well. So, we are doing everything we can to be a stable source of preformed loops and installation tools.

IS THERE A PRINCIPLE OR ADVICE YOU RECEIVED AT SOME POINT THAT HAS HELPED YOU IN BUSINESS?

It sounds cliché but realizing that every problem is an opportunity to learn, grow and make improvements has been instrumental to our success as a company. It is a mindset we foster company wide. Our employees aren’t afraid to tell us if they think something is wrong, if they have an idea for improvement, or if they have made a mistake. We work with our employees to identify areas where we can improve and design procedures together so that our high standards of quality are maintained.