KEITH Manufacturing Co. began the way everything begins: with an idea, a solution to a problem. This specific notion percolated in Keith Foster's mind. His genius, dedication and courage brought the WALKING FLOOR® system to reality.
Today, KEITH ranks as the third largest employer in Jefferson County, employing about 200 people here in Madras and another 50 to 60 people around the globe.
Companies buy Madras-made KEITH products across the country and in six locations worldwide. The company has facilities in Canada, Mexico and the Netherlands.
Almost every person in Jefferson County somehow connects indirectly to the unloaders. KEITH technology probably stored the ice you buy at the grocery store, unloaded the recycled materials that made the Trex® planking for your deck, and almost certainly dumped your garbage in the landfill. Dairies and feed lots everywhere use trailers with KEITH unloaders.
How the WALKING FLOOR works
Keith Foster came up with the WALKING FLOOR design to solve the problem of safely removing bulk materials from a truck without using chains or having to tip the trailer dump-truck style. Tipping trucks can be dangerous.
The WALKING FLOOR unloader uses a system of metal slats to move bulk product out the back of a trailer. The floor uses the weight of the load to its advantage. The slats begin together. Every third slat slides back a foot. The load stays put. Then every second slat slides back a foot. The load still stays put. When the third slat slides back and all the slats are even with each other, the slats move together and shift the load shifts out the trailer door.
When it first came out, it took the WALKING FLOOR system 15 to 20 minutes to unload a 45-foot trailer. By 1984, KEITH perfected the mechanics with a hydraulic drive unit that unloads a 45-foot trailer in three minutes, an improvement that set sales on fire. WALKING FLOOR sales have increased each year since the early 1980s, and the company continues to grow.
It started on the farm
Raymond Keith Foster was born in 1922 and grew up during the Great Depression on a farm in Blackwell, Oklahoma. He learned the basics of mechanics and engineering by operating and repairing farm machinery alongside his father on the family farm. During World War II, Foster worked as a machinist at a McDonnell Douglas aircraft plant in Tulsa.
He studied engineering at the University of Tulsa and honed his knack for solving "unsolvable" problems.
Foster moved to Central Oregon in the 1940s where, as co-owner of an Allis-Chalmers farm equipment dealership in Redmond, he began selling combines with a modification he designed that improved harvesting clover seed.
Since Madras had the corner on clover seed at the time, in 1950, Foster moved to Madras and opened his own business: Foster Manufacturing, which was located on Highway 97 next to where the Greenspot Mobile Home Park is today and included what is now the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.
His first of many inventions was the Foster Chaff Saver. Foster devised a way to blow the chaff into a trailer as farmers harvested their crops, saving the valuable high-protein chaff as livestock feed. The weight of the load tilted the wagon, allowing piles of chaff, stray grain and straw to automatically unload from the trailer. This gave ranchers a practical, economical way to supplement short hay crops.
Farmers across the country quickly bought Foster's products. Keith's son Mark Foster, now chief executive officer of KEITH Manufacturing, experienced the early company's growth firsthand.
"My brother and I would sweep the floor," said Foster. "And the floor kept getting bigger and bigger."
A young Mark Foster also noticed when his father's business took a turn for the worse. "We used to play baseball with the kids from the Greenspot," said Foster. "The ball field started filling up with inventory."
In 1962, recession hit the country. Farmers stopped buying, and machine after unsold machine started lining up in the ball field. Foster Manufacturing had all of its money tied up in inventory.
One company ends, another begins
That recession ended Foster Manufacturing, but it didn't stop Keith Foster.
He had more ideas, he still had equipment, and losing the business gave him stronger determination than ever. He refused to lose his company ever again.
"My father was driven. He was inventive," said Mark Foster. "He wanted to be his own boss."
Keith Foster moved his operation to its current location on Northwest Alder near the Madras Airport. To distinguish the new company from his first business endeavor, Foster named it KEITH Manufacturing.
Through the rest of the 1960s, Foster continued developing various inventions focused on making it easier to unload and move crops.
The KEITH Texas Wagon folded down to eight feet wide, narrow enough for the highway, but on the farm opened to 16 feet wide for double the volume.
In the early 1970s, he started working on the WALKING FLOOR concept. Soon the system became the industry standard for moving all kinds of bulk materials, but especially in agriculture. A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
The company started with farming equipment and continued to focus on helping farmers.
"You know how farming is," said Mark Foster, "sometimes you have money, sometimes you don't."
About this time, Dan Jackson entered the picture. In 1980, nobody was hiring. Every mill, dairy and gas station turned Jackson away.
Then Jackson found a job listing perfectly suited to all the skills he'd picked up doing odd jobs working his way through Bible college. He showed up at KEITH and sat next to Keith Foster's desk for five hours waiting for an interview. Jackson got his first impression of Foster as he watched him work.
"He bordered on being a genius," said Jackson. "He was really smart. He was doing everything, including purchasing. The details included a lot of highly specialized knowledge."
Jackson took some tests, answered interview questions, but went home without a job offer.
He needed a job. He needed to support his family. So, the next morning Jackson called Foster. "I came in for a job interview yesterday. When did you want me to start? How about Monday?"
"Okay?" answered a somewhat reluctant Foster. He had been holding the job for an acquaintance from Australia.
While waiting for the interview, Jackson had noticed the workload overwhelmed Foster. He made a point of checking in with Foster every 15 to 30 minutes asking, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Soon he became Foster's indispensable right-hand man. You'll find Jackson's name on patents for the company. When people lined up to ask Foster for direction, Jackson would intercept them and provide the answers himself.
One day Jackson was in the office while Foster was on a sales call. Another sales call came in. "Can you handle that?" Foster asked Jackson.
With that, Jackson became KEITH's first official salesperson.
A single word catapulted the course of the company: waste.
Jackson thought the WALKING FLOOR concept was brilliant, but the company needed to find the right buyer. A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
"I went to a farm show in California, and 14 companies wanted to purchase the trailer," recalls Jackson. "No one could get funding for the trailer."
A customer named Tom Fry bought a system for moving garbage — he'd become a WALKING FLOOR system enthusiast.
Fry, Jackson and Mark Foster teamed up to convince Keith to expand his market.
As long as people generate garbage, garbage movers will have money. The waste business doesn't experience volatile swings like the agriculture industry.
Consensus grew. The team targeted the waste industry.
Trailer builders gave KEITH an icy reception when the company attended its first waste industry trade show.
"The five main trailer dealers said the floor would never work in the waste industry. 'Go back to the farm,'" Jackson remembers. "They told all the customers the floor wouldn't work."
Apparently, you don't say no to Keith Foster. Tell him he can't do it, and he'd only try harder.
If the waste industry wouldn't install the floors in their trucks, KEITH would sell the trailers with the floors already installed. The company teamed up with Star Trailer out of Sunnyside, Washington. Together they built a trailer with the WALKING FLOOR system already installed.
They called it the KEITH Star. Sales took off.
"Those five companies I told you about all called me in the same week and asked for quotes for the unloading system for the waste industry," said Jackson.
In 2001, the waste industry inducted Foster into the Environmental Industry Association Hall of Fame for revolutionizing the industry by eliminating the need to elevate trailers on the tipping platform, creating a safer work environment.
That same year, the Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum nominated KEITH for Manufacturing Company of the Year.
In 2002, the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce named KEITH Business of the Year.
And in 2022, the trucking industry honored Keith Foster on the Mid-America Truck Show Wall of Fame. A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
As customers approach KEITH with new challenges, the company's variations become a new product.
• KEITH builds ice bins with a plastic floor that moves the ice to an auger that unloads the ice.
• KEITH builds stationary systems that move up to 1400 tons of bulk material.
• KEITH builds sweep systems that clean the trailer as it unloads.
• KEITH outfits its WALKING FLOOR systems with floor slats made in different shapes and out of different materials for moving different kinds of loads.
• the KEITH FREIGHT RUNNER® system specializes in moving palletized loads.
Every component made in Madras
The product goes all around the world, but it's all manufactured in Madras, Oregon.
"I'll be somewhere in Mexico or in India and see product that was literally made by the people here, turned from raw material into a usable product that makes other people's lives better," said Lindsay Foster-Drago, Mark Foster's daughter and president of KEITH Manufacturing. "It is pretty powerful. That is something I hope everyone in our company is super proud of."
The company makes nearly every component here in Madras. The company founder considered it the best way to control quality.
Touring the facility, Mark Foster points to a plastic seal designed to prevent material from slipping between the floor slats.
"We had it outsourced and the company missed an ingredient," said Foster. "The seal failed. We can't afford to have the system fail."
Now the company makes every floor seal, every bearing, every piston, every valve and every cylinder. The company wants independence over any quality or supply chain concerns.
KEITH likes to say the trailers will wear out before the floors do. The company supports the WALKING FLOOR products it made 50 years ago. They drop everything to repair issues with any of their products. A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
"I heard it many times in the field," said Jackson. "When I brought them a new product nobody hesitated. 'We know if it doesn't work you guys will come back and make it work.' And we did."
Keith Foster matched his genius with hard work. In the hard years, there were weeks when it was difficult to make payroll. Jackson says the founder worked 365 days a year, sometimes 18-hour days, because he felt personally responsible to support his employees and their families. Jackson said he fired very few employees.
The loyalty is reciprocal. Almost 60% of KEITH's employees have stayed with the company more than five years, more than a third have been with the company for more than 10 years.
"We have a great workforce," said Mark Foster, "valuable people."
Foster says the company feels loyal to Madras. Most of its U.S. customers are on the East Coast, but the business will stay in Madras. KEITH will continue to support Madras with projects like the Splash Park at Sahalee Park, Calves' Closet pantry for school children, and college scholarships.
Even into his eighties, Keith Foster functioned as the company's chief engineer, overseeing the design and manufacture of his products.
The seed of this company started in a young boy. "It seems to me that almost everything I did starting at the age of about seven was training for what I am doing today. My grandfather telling me not to bend a nail over and if you do, pull it out and drive another in straight. My father insisting that I learn to saw a board square and straight. And the work I did at the age of 10 or 12 operating and repairing farm machinery with my father. At the rather young age of 20, I was made lead man over 14 machines at Douglas Aircraft. Here I learned some very valuable lessons."
That seven-year-old boy grew up to build a thriving multi-million-dollar company that holds 270 patents and has sold more than 90,000 units across the country and around the world.
When Keith Foster passed away in 2006, his son Mark took over as CEO. Later on, his granddaughter, Lindsay Foster-Drago, became president; his other granddaughter, Melissa Henning, became vice president.
"It wasn't an easy start for my grandfather, and it was a long road to get where we are now," said Foster-Drago. She says she hopes to double the size of the company over the next 10 to 15 years, expanding into new, strategic global markets.
Something she heard her grandfather say still guides Foster-Drago today: "The difficult we do today. The impossible takes a little longer."
After 40 years, Jackson has retired but still works on a consulting basis.
"I have never been more confident of KEITH Manufacturing than I am now," said Jackson. "I know the company is in good hands and will only prosper under their leadership."
Thanks to KEITH Manufacturing Inc. and the Foster family for photos and graphics used in this story.
You count on us to stay informed and we depend on you to fund our efforts. Quality local journalism takes time and money. Please support us to protect the future of community journalism.
Have a thought or opinion on the news of the day? Get on your soapbox and share your opinions with the world. Send us a Letter to the Editor!
Portland Tribune Beaverton Valley Times Tigard Tualatin Times Lake Oswego Review West Linn Tidings Wilsonville Spokesman Hillsboro Tribune Forest Grove News Times Newberg Graphic Clackamas Review Oregon City News The Outlook Sandy Post Estacada News Canby Herald Woodburn Independent Molalla Pioneer Columbia County Spotlight Regal Courier Sherwood Gazette The Bee Southwest Community Connection
Columns Public Notices Oregon Property Foreclosures Business Calendar Business Leads News Links Plan Center Marketing
Columns Public Notices Oregon Property Foreclosures Business Calendar Business Leads News Links Plan Center Marketing
Columns Public Notices Oregon Property Foreclosures Business Calendar Business Leads News Links Plan Center Marketing
Columns Public Notices Oregon Property Foreclosures Business Calendar Business Leads News Links Plan Center Marketing
Weekly Ads This Week's Circulars Find your Next Vehicle Special Sections Insiders
News Tips Letters to the Editor Births | Anniversaries | Weddings | Engagements | Business | Birthday | Obituaries Community Calendar
Weekly Ads This Week's Circulars Find your Next Vehicle Special Sections Insiders
News Tips Letters to the Editor Births | Anniversaries | Weddings | Engagements | Business | Birthday | Obituaries Community Calendar
Advertise with Us Current Job Openings
© 2022 Pamplin Media Group | All rights reserved | 6605 SE Lake Rd, Portland, OR 97222 | 503-684-0360 | Privacy Policy | Refund Policy