Medical supplier expands, adds jobs

Even in a recession, demand for surgical supplies continues to grow.

And so AVID Medical keeps growing.

The James City County-based company, which recently completed an $8 million expansion that doubled the size of its plant, is benefiting growing demand in health care for pre-assembled surgery kits. The company, with a staff of more than 500 now, continues to add jobs and expects to employ more than 600 in about a year.

At its plant in the Stonehouse Commerce Park in Toano, employees assemble custom procedure trays, which are sterile packages of medical supplies. They are shipped to hospitals and surgery centers around the nation.

AVID employees prepare the trays with disposable products needed for surgical procedures -- items such gowns, drapes and syringes, which the company buys from suppliers. AVID assembles the trays based on its customers' needs.

"In today's environment, with the increased cost of health care, we make custom procedural trays, which helps reduce the overall cost in hospitals from the standpoint of purchasing," said Michael Sahady, the company's founder, chairman and CEO.

By ordering custom procedure trays from a supplier, hospitals and surgery centers can reduce the turnaround time for procedures in operating rooms, Sahady said. "It gives them the ability to do 25 to 30 percent more procedures with the same staff."

Sahady helped pioneered the business of custom procedure trays in the 1970s with a company he founded in Northern Virginia named MedSurg. Other companies have since entered the market, and "the industry is now approaching $2 billion" in sales, he said.

In 1994, Sahady sold MedSurg, but he decided to get back into the industry in the late 1990s after seeing that many companies in the business were consolidating, reducing competition. Sahady founded AVID Medical with Rick Setian, now the company's president and chief operating officer.

From its Toano plant, the company's only location, AVID provides trays to about 1,000 hospitals and surgery centers for many types of medical procedures.

Sahady said orthopedic and cardiovascular procedures are the top growth markets. "With the aging population, there are more surgeries going on, and more orthopedic and cardiovascular procedures," he said.

AVID considered sites on the West Coast for its expansion but ultimately decided to stay in James City, said Keith A. Taylor, the county's economic-development director.

"It is a company that is basically home-grown, and it has gone from two people in a small office in another part of the county to what it is today," Taylor said.

"That segment of the economy seems to be relatively immune to economic ups and downs," Taylor said of health-care supply.

When its expansion was announced in 2006, AVID got a $700,000 grant through the governor's opportunity fund. The company committed to create 303 jobs and a make $7.9 million investment.

The company has expanded twice. In 2002 it broke ground on a $3.5 million, 45,000-square-foot addition to its 40,000-square-foot plant. The latest expansion adds 90,000 square feet, doubling the size of the plant.

Sahady said the company has hired about 200 of the employees, and it now employs more than 500. The company expects to hire 100 more people in 2010, mostly in production jobs.

"We do a lot of promoting from within," Sahady said. "We have people that move into team-leader and supervisor jobs in the production areas. We have had them move into the regulatory and quality, accounting, customer service and purchasing and planning department."

Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or .