Company provides work for developmentally disabled

An Elon University graduate and his business partner have made Burlington the base for their company’s packaging and shipping operations, providing jobs to developmentally disabled(disabled products) adults. 
Before graduating from Elon five years ago, Ian Baltutis and RJ Yozwiak invented Silent Feet Anti-Vibration pads as their senior project in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. 
Baltutis said they were challenged to invent and market a product, and they created a vibration-absorbing pad for washing machines using “the world’s softest polyurethane.” 
Baltutis said he and Yozwiak wanted to continue working with the material, which “happens to be really good for vibration isolating.” 
After winning a $10,000 grant at Evansville University’s New Venture Creation Competition in March 2008, they launched The Vibration Solution, LLC, in 2009 and its manufacturing brand, Isolate IT Manufacturing. 
The Silent Feet pads are still manufactured at Sorbothane Inc., in Kent, Ohio, which owns the patent to the polyurethane The Vibration Solution uses in its more than 300 products. 
“We’ve expanded into Canada and Europe recently,” Baltutis said. 
The company began distributing its products internationally in 2011. Last year, The Vibration Solution got the distribution rights for Sorbothane Inc.’s prescription-quality orthotics brand, RxSorbo, Baltutis said. 
The company provides vibration-damping products to aerospace companies, research laboratories, major technology firms, military contractors and music recording companies, including DreamWorks Animation, General Electric, Google, Apple, NASA, and Sony Music. 
Now, those products will be repackaged and shipped from Burlington’s OE Enterprises on North Park Avenue, which became The Vibration Solution’s international packaging and order fulfillment operations center in June. 
“It seemed like a really cool model,” Baltutis said of the OE Enterprises business plan. “They give back to the community by providing these jobs.” 
OE Enterprises is a local business that creates opportunities for self-reliance and professions for people with disabilities(disabled supplies) or who face other obstacles to being employed, while building relationships with local community partners. 
“Our best practice is to evaluate individuals’ abilities and place them in a competitive (employment) environment,” at either off-site jobs in their communities, or at either the Hillsborough or Burlington OE Enterprises location, said Van Welch, vice president of operations at OE Enterprises. 
He said OE Enterprises has placed clients in hundreds of businesses in Orange, Durham, Alamance and Guilford counties, and the Burlington location at North Park Avenue provides production jobs for 50 or 60 local companies. 
Welch said The Vibration Solution began transitioning repackaging and order fulfillment operations to Burlington last month. 
he said, “(Baltutis)’s been moving in many, many different products,” for both the assembly and packaging site, as well as the inventory department where OE Enterprises employees will pack and ship the products to individuals and businesses. 
Boxes of 250 different styles and sizes of orthotics inserts, “Silent Feet” and other Isolate IT products line the shelves of the order-fulfillment area at OE Enterprises’ warehouse, where Special Projects Manager Joe Bumgarner Jr. oversees the bulk and individual product shipments. 
He said because Baltutis was very organized in transporting his materials, the OE Enterprises clients, “can pull the packing list, come over to the boxes and be able to pull the right item.” Bumgarner said, “Everything has integrated very well.” 
“Ian’s business is helping to start new jobs,” Bumgarner said. He said, “We just hired a full-time individual,” for the order-fullfilment process and he anticipates hiring another two or three part-timers since, “It’s going to take more than one person to fulfill the orders.” 
In another section of the warehouse, OE Enterprise employees repackage and label the various types of “Silent Feet” appliance insulators for shipment – a job that has provided continued employment to 30 OE Enterprises clients, Bumgarner said. 
“We’re happy to bring more of his business operations into Alamance County,” Welch said. “That helps create jobs for people in Alamance County.”