In an age when companies contract out for many services, Homasote maintains its own shop of machinists, electricians, pipe fitters and welders.

And the raw material needed to make their product? Old New Jersey newspapers.

Homasote is not just the name of the company, but also the name of the product it has been making at its West Trenton facility since 1909. While Homasote may use an old but reliable way of doing business, they are constantly looking for new ways to market and use their unique fiberboard.

"The product is the same. The technology to make it hasn't changed. But we continue to upgrade the process," Homasote President Peter J. McElvogue told area legislators during a July 19 site visit. "Our product is unique. No one does exactly what we do."

McElvogue and Plant Manager Chris Schulze guided state Senator Shirley Turner, Assembly members Linda Greenstein and Reed Gusciora, NJBIA President Joe Gonzalez and Vice President Frank Robinson through their facility. The tour was part of NJBIA's Site Visit Program, designed to give legislators a better understanding of local businesses.

Homasote begins with recycled newspapers, which are dumped into a vat that looks like a giant blender and mixed with water to form slurry. The slurry is then molded into a new paper board, which is placed inside a giant press. The press squeezes the water out of it until a one-and-a-half inch thick board is compressed into desired thickness.

The Homasote boards are then dried in a 400-degree oven roughly the size of a football field. The process creates a hard, gray, nonabrasive sheet that can be cut into any shape.

Originally, Homasote was used for walls and ceilings in early 20th century buildings. The proliferation of drywall, which is cheaper, forced the Homasote Company to find new uses for its product.

While more expensive than drywall, Homasote is stronger, water resistant, and sound deadening, McElvogue explained. Such qualities make Homasote an ideal material for under carpeting, hardwood floors and between walls to reduce noise-particularly in multi-family housing.

Homasote also took advantage of the product's nonabrasive surface to create forms for shipping glass. In fact, Homasote's PakLine division is devoted entirely to creating forms, molds and custom-made packaging for everything from rolls of steel to small electric motors.

Finally the company laminates Homasote with cork or up to six different kinds of fabric to create what it calls tack boards, which can be used as bulletin boards or walls in office cubicles.

This innovative approach to finding new uses for the company has paid off. No one has been laid off at Homasote since 1976.

McElvogue said that the company was coming to the end of a transition period where it was "trying to find a 101 uses" for Homasote. Now, the company will concentrate on having their product specified for use by architects. That means the company must convince architects to specify the use of Homasote in their buildings instead of other materials like light concrete or other materials.

"We have to do a good job of selling," McElvogue said. ""We have to take our product from a commodity building product to an architect specified and building specified product. That's our challenge and that's our goal."

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