Leland-based Tri-Tech Forensics, a company that started out manufacturing and assembling evidence collection kits and crime scene investigation products, continues to grow more than 35 years after it was founded.
 
A big boost more than a year ago came with the acquisition of Rescue Essentials, a firm that sells emergency medical kits.
 
On a recent weekday, some of Tri-Tech’s 90 employees (up from less than 50 five years ago) were working to assemble Stop the Bleed kits, a commercial product that is branded with the trademarked name of a federal government initiative.
 
Part of the reason the Stop the Bleed kits are expanding “is because of so many shootings in the workplace or schools – places where there shouldn’t be shootings. It’s a sad state of affairs,” said Jim Seidel, Tri-Tech’s CEO.
 
But the kits save lives, he said.
 
“We do close to a couple hundred orders a day in that business,” Seidel said.
 
One of the leaders in prehospital care, Rescue Essentials was previously based in Colorado and its products are sold to medical and law enforcement agencies throughout the world, with clients that include the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Department of Defense.
 
A version of the emergency medical kit that’s purchased by the federal government is known as an individual first aid kit, often used by soldiers.
 
The military found that with the use of the individual kits, it was able to reduce casualties by 30 percent. As some veterans leave the military and go into other fields, including law enforcement, they’ve wanted to continue to have the kits on hand, Seidel explained.
 
Some workplaces that come with the potential for injury are also interested in them.
 
“We’re starting to sell these into the commercial marketplace,” he said. “Large corporations are looking at putting them in their car fleets.”
 
Other areas of growth for Tri-Tech include digital forensics and DNA kits. The company also offers among its products: toxicology kits, sexual assault kits and gunshot residue kits.
 
The firm, which is housed in about 20,000 square feet in an industrial building at 8770 Trade St. NE in Leland, grew by 14 percent in 2017 and 2018. But Seidel is ready to grow some more, planning to add a clean room that can make DNA testing products that will meet specifications Europe has adopted and that Seidel expects the U.S. to adopt at some point.
 
“Everything that we have here today has grown, but in order to really reach the next level for the company, we’ve got to either add … more products for existing customers or find products like ours to sell to new customers, and one of those is clean room products,” he said. “I’d like to have the clean room in place by the end of the third quarter.”  

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