GARRETT — The Garrett Common Council Tuesday unanimously approved a declaratory resolution offering a 10-year tax abatement for E-Collar Technologies Inc.
Owner Gregory VanCuren asked for incentives of phasing in property taxes on in $3 million in manufacturing, research and development and other equipment necessary to manufacture an updated version of an electronic dog collar he helped create more than 20 years ago.
The business would operate from the company’s original 66,000-square-foot building at 2120 Forrest Park Drive in Garrett Industrial Park.
VanCuren detailed the evolution of the invisible fence business at Tuesday’s meeting. It began when he and partner Mike Westrick created the original product in their basements and garages in Fort Wayne with only $3,000 in their pockets.
They opened Innotek in the 1995 at the Forrest Park location, where the entire product was made. Ten years later, the company was sold for $50 million, and subsequent owners eventually moved the entire operation to China, VanCuren told council members.
The company began with 15 workers and once employed more than 200. The Garrett building has been empty for about five years, he said. VanCuren retained ownership of the facility, which holds a current assessed value of $1.2 million.
While his product works on the same principle as the original, VanCuren said it now includes a variable stimulus level technique and is completely wireless, so underground perimeter wiring no longer is required.
Components of the product are now assembled in South Korea. VanCuren said he plans to eventually move the entire operation to the Garrett site.
VanCuren told the council he plans to go online with his product Sept. 1.
“I’ve already had 10,000 hits and I don’t even have website — it’s still under construction,” he said.
The application for tax abatement says E-Collar Technologies plans to hire up to 175 employees in the next five years with an average hourly wage of $12-16 per hour and an anticipated 5 percent annual wage increase. Salaried employees would average $60,000. He plans to hire pods of four workers at time until the facility is up to speed, first working on PC boards, and then adding other parts of the operation.
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