A big leap for firm that makes products measured in microns

The Saukville industrial park’s newest business, Ereztech, is a high-tech company serving other high-tech businesses across the country.

Its products may not be apparent when you use things like cellphones or are fitted with medical implants, but they’re essential to them.

Ereztech, based in Georgia, creates organometallics. Two-thirds of its products are used in coatings for semi-conductors by companies such as Intel and Samsung, CEO Roman Rytov said.

The other third of its products are used for anything that runs with advanced coatings, Rytov said, including medical devices and implants and “super advanced” glass lenses. 

Its products are also used for jewelry coatings and “sophisticated nuts and bolts on the space station ... Anything that needs a thin layer of expensive metals,” Rytov said, noting their products are measured in microns and molecules.

“A millimeter is huge,” he said, adding the company has about 1,000 products in its catalog.

Ereztech, which held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its Progress Drive plant in Saukville Wednesday, Sept. 17, has come a long way since it was formed by Rytov 15 years ago.

When it started in 2010, Rytov said, Ereztech served as an importer and distributor of compounds needed in these industries.

“We found a number of Russian companies that made fantastic products but didn’t know how to sell or distribute it,” Rytov said.

The company served as a middleman, buying and importing these materials for American firms, streamlining the process and handling the logistical issues that occurred, he said.

“We dealt with the permits, with customs,” he said. “It made it easier for companies to get the products they needed.”

The only presence the company had in the United States was a warehouse and offices, he said.

But, he always wanted to have a laboratory in the States to develop his own materials and sell them to businesses, Rytov, who moved from Russia to the U.S. with his family in 2005, said.

“It’s not easy,” he said.

In 2017, he hired his first employee in the U.S., and in 2019 he found a facility in Sheboygan Falls.

“Now we had our beachhead,” Rytov said.

Many of his employees came from Sigma-Aldrich, and while it gave the company a start as it began its new focus, the 7,000-square-foot building isn’t large enough to accommodate all he wanted to do, Rytov said.

With his employees coming between Sheboygan and the southern reaches of Milwaukee, Rytov said, he began looking for another facility. 

He bought the former Rebel Converting building in Saukville in 2022, noting it is halfway between Sheboygan and Milwaukee.

Issues with the pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine made things difficult — “It was not optimal,” Rytov said —but he persisted.

And now, the 35,000-square-foot facility in Saukville is open as the research and development hub for Ereztech while the Sheboygan Falls building is used primarily for production.

“We have increased our capacity seven, eight times compared to where we are today,” he said. “We’re ready.”

Rytov said he wants to decrease the company’s dependence on Russian products and ramp up its use of U.S. products.

Making as much as possible in the U.S. means the company can be more flexible and nimble in responding to customer needs, he said.

Ereztech develops specialized, molecule-thin coatings for industries, Rytov said. The company calls on potential customers and sees what it can help with, then creates the products needed by the businesses.

“It’s a game of patience,” he said, noting they may contact and talk with a company and not hear anything for a significant amount of time before they’re asked to develop a product.

They make products in lots as small as 25 grams, Rytov said, and if the customer likes them it may order a larger quantity.

“One hundred kilograms a month is a good order,” he said, adding that it may be three to six months before they hear back from a customer.

If the product isn’t quite right for the customer, they will tweak it until it is right, Rytov said.

“It’s a sophisticated game,” he said.  

Right now, Ereztech is only using a portion of the Saukville building, which also has office space, but Rytov foresees the day in the next couple years — perhaps even next year — when it will also house production facilities.

In preparation for that day, he said, the company has installed infrastructure to support the next phase. For example, it’s installed the “bones” of a ventilation system for the production facility but not the “guts,” he said.

Due to the nature of the products being created, Rytov said, he’s invested a great deal into safety measures in the facility.

“We are doing way above what is required by code,” he said, something he uses as a selling point with customers.

“We cannot afford to shut down the building for a month, for even two weeks,” he said. “This is a serious investment.”

The Saukville facility will have about 20 employees, including office workers, five or six chemists and technicians, chemical engineers and a quality control group, Rytov said.

Manufacturing, he said, will continue in Sheboygan Falls. 

While the business will operate 10 hours a day, five days a week, once the manufacturing facility in Saukville, that is likely increase.

“We’re transitioning to a manufacturer,” he said. “I think it’s the time when the history meets the future. We’ve built our base, now it’s time for the moon shot — becoming a 24/7 manufacturer and making all the products in America.”