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Bio-Warm has developed a patented conductive textile that is
being used in electric blankets, bedding, heated floors, car seats, portable saunas,
greenhouses, medical facilities, and more, using
no wires and emitting particles that are beneficial for the human body
Consumer – Non Cyclical
Textiles – Non Apparel
(BOWC.OB)
Bio-Warm Corporation
17011 Beach Blvd., Suite 1230
Huntington Beach, CA 92647
Phone: (714) 843-5450
John Park
Chief Executive Officer
Interview conducted by:
Walter Banks, Publisher
CEOCFOinterviews.com
March 24, 2005
BIO:
Johnny Park, President, brings over 15 years of experience in
marketing and product development. From 2003 – 2004, Mr. Park has served
as a management consultant and also set up several companies, including RED5 Holdings,
Inc., a diversified holding company with interests in technology to advertising,
of which he has been serving as president and CEO. From 1997-2002, Mr.
Park held the position of Vice President Asia of Frank-Lin Distilled Products, of San
Jose CA, where he brought several key brands to market. Mr. Park's strengths in
product development and marketing have already helped develop several core products that
will have a significant impact to Bio-Warm Corporation.
Company Profile:
Bio-Warm Corp., through its wholly-owned subsidiary Mirae Tech. Co, in Republic of Korea,
is engaged in the research and development and production of electrical energy and
environment-related products. The Company holds several international and domestic patents
and produces electric conductive textile heating panel, mat, wall paper, laminated floor
paper, sauna, negative potential plate, negative ion plate, fomenting machine and
noise-related products like acoustic absorbent, soundproofing materials, etc. that protect
the environment and enhance people's life quality.
CEOCFOinterviews:
Mr. Park, how long have you been CEO at Bio-Warm?
Mr. Park: "I recently took over the reigns of title of
CEO about six months ago."
CEOCFOinterviews:
What changes have occurred since then?
Mr. Park: "The company was first formed in South Korea
as Mirae Tech. This company was basically an R&D company. Bio-Warm has achieved some
breakthrough developments in heating radiant textiles, which is a heating element that
doesn’t use any wires to produce the heating property. Since we took over, we have
gotten the company out into the mainstream and have gotten more exposure; mainly focusing
on marketing. We have hired a lot of key marketing individuals and people who have a lot
of experience. Since we took over, our purchase orders grew by over 500%."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Will you explain the products that your are selling?
Mr. Park: "Right now our company is divided into three
major segments. We make a textile that can be placed under hardwood floors, marble
flooring or into drywall. What that does is it produces a heating effect that, instead of
using a regular conventional heater, we are able to heat the houses and individual
dwelling places, using these textiles."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Does this work by electricity?
Mr. Park: "We do use electricity and one of the benefits
of our textile is that we use 80% less electricity than conventional heating would. We
focus on housewares such as electric blankets. If you've seen a conventional electric
blanket, you will feel and notice wires going through them. Just like the premium cars,
have heated seats. What is common is that you see wires running through the blankets and
that is dangerous actually and it takes more energy. Our fabric does not use any wire at
all. Our product is made out of 100% woven textile. We dip it into carbon to have heating
properties. In a third part of our company, we are focusing on clothing. We have developed
certain products that we can put into clothing and heat them. For example a coat, we can
heat for up to eight hours using a small lithium battery."
CEOCFOinterviews:
So it is less expensive than the current wire technology that's out there?
Mr. Park: "Because we possess the technology, we have
several patents on it. One of the major benefits of our technology is it costs up to
twenty times less than our competitors that use wires. We put together a package at a very
nominal charge. For example, our heated floors will cost about 20 times less than our
competitors. The cost benefit is tremendous."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Do you manufacture these products yourself?
Mr. Park: "We actually manufacture these products. We
have a two-pronged approach to the coats; we manufacture our own clothing but we
sub-contract and do OEM marketing for other companies such as Columbia. That is one of the
companies that we are actually trying to focus on getting. Companies will subcontract us
to make the products for them and they will install them in their products."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Do you have the facilities in-place for expansion or do you need to do this through
partnerships to grow?
Mr. Park: "We just recently signed a contact with the
government of China and we will be opening up a brand new manufacturing facility in Beijing,
China as well as Bakersfield, California. We will eventually have fully functional
operational manufacturing plants in three countries: Korea, China and the United States."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Do you feel you have the manpower?
Mr. Park: "We definitely have the manpower. One thing
that was up in the air was the financing part, so we just recently signed a five million
dollar line of credit commitment from Southridge Capital, which we will be utilizing to go
ahead and expand."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Can you give us an idea of the marketplace?
Mr. Park: "One facet of the company that I had not
mentioned was the health benefits of our product. Because we do dip it into carbon, the
benefits that come out from the textiles is that they emit an infrared ray out into the
air, which the human body absorbs. The health benefits of these rays are tremendous, for
curing arthritis to better skin tone to working your heart to losing weight. These have
all been proven by the New England Journal of Medicine and Health of all the health
benefits of infrared technology. It seems like everyday we are getting to know and
establish a different field of business that we never thought was possible. When we
started to develop this textile, we could not imagine electric blankets, bedding, heated
floors, greenhouses, operating rooms, or car seats.
Right now we have a major deal with a Japanese firm and what they do is that they are a
manufacturer of animal feed and as you know animal feed is made from potatoes or sweet
potatoes and they would need to dehydrate it and put it into a meal. What they have
learned is that when they dehydrate potatoes and sweet potatoes to make animal feed, most
of the nutrients are taken away during the dehydration process. When they dehydrate these
potatoes using our textiles, most of the nutrients remain intact. We just signed a four
million dollar deal with the Japanese firm now, and we will also get into the agriculture
business. We just installed our fabric for testing inside of some scuba-diving suits as
well as ski-suits. These people are able to get heat from way under the water with a
battery."
CEOCFOinterviews:
How many countries are you marketing into right now?
Mr. Park: "Our products are in Korea, Australia, Japan, Taiwan,
China, Germany and Canada."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Are you making headway in the United States?
Mr. Park: "Absolutely! We have a product that we will be
introducing in the United States very shortly. We have a product that will set the health
industry on its ears because for thirty minutes a day, all you have to do is recline in
our product, which is a portable sauna. So you can take the sauna wherever you go. You not
only lose up to 600 calories but you are working your cardiovascular, you are increasing
your heart rate and removing deadly toxins from your body. We will be marketing this
through infomercials. It used to cost about $3 thousand to purchase a sauna, but we are
able to put together the same benefits of a sauna for about $140.00 retail all around.
That is about 20 times less than our competitors."
CEOCFOinterviews: What is the process that you have to go
through to introduce a product in the United States?
Mr. Park: "Every country has a different safety
standard. For the U.S. it is the UL listing. Every single product that is sold in the United
States needs to get qualified; it is a safety standard. We are qualified in Germany, all
of Europe, Japan and Korea. We just recently applied for the process in the U.S. so that
we can start selling our product here in the U.S."
CEOCFOinterviews:
It sound like things are just beginning to get interesting!
Mr. Park: "We expect that in 2005 it will be a break-out
year for us. We are going to establish ourselves as a leader in a brand-new category of
business."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Returning to your product for heating homes, does it require a professional to install?
Mr. Park: "Absolutely not! They can do it themselves. It
is so user-friendly that anyone without any prior knowledge of electrical skills can put
it together and install our radiant textiles."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Does it go beneath the wood or on top of it?
Mr. Park: "You could do it both ways. You could put it
under carpeting. I would suggest putting it underneath the flooring. One of the major
advantages of our heating elements is that when you use a convection heater, not only is
it very costly, but convection heaters are very unhealthy for our bodies because it forces
hot air through a room circulating dust and dust mites and impurities, not to mention that
it makes the room very dry and it is bad for allergies and your skin. Our process is that
we heat through a radiant processor. It is just like the sun, it heats our bodies through
a radiant processor. Our technology heats the object inside of a room and it makes it
comfortable as well as beneficial for human health."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Are your textiles durable?
Mr. Park: "Our textiles are so durable that we offer a
lifetime guarantee on every single one of our textiles. If you were to take a knife and
make a big X going through the middle of a textile, it would still work. It would not work
right on the X mark, but it would work all the way around it."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Do you sell them per textile or in bulk?
Mr. Park: "Both ways."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Tell us about Europe and Japan and why you are able to enter the marketplace there?
Mr. Park: "They are about five to ten years ahead of the
United States when it comes to implementing new technologies. Fifty percent of the new
homes built are all being put together with radiant heated floors. They are no longer
using convection hot air any more. That is a sign of the past now. We have entered into
this new world and everyone will be switching to using heated floors as a way and a means
for a more comfortable heating element for your home."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Are you the only ones doing this?
Mr. Park: "There are many companies involved in this
field; however we are the only company that does not use any wires to heat our textiles.
Not only do we decrease the cost, but ours is the only one that emits particles that are
beneficial for the human body."
CEOCFOinterviews:
If I wanted to do one room in my house, how much would that cost?
Mr. Park: "If you are talking about a baby room, it is
probably about 154 feet or so; it would cost you less than $400.00. We will be selling it
to Home Depot. You can buy a little controller for $9.99 and just hook it up. There are
step-by-step instructions."
CEOCFOinterviews:
Is that done through batteries or do you have to use an electrical outlet?
Mr. Park: "It is plugged in to an electrical outlet. We
can use AC or DC or car battery adaptors as well. We developed this blanket for the United
States Trucking Association actually. When you fold this blanket up, it is like a little
cushion but at night time you just plug it into an adaptor and you have a warm blanket to
last you throughout the night. You can use it for camping, or the truckers use it in their
cabs. It is phenomenal what the applications are. We actually want to focus and make
jackets for UPS and Federal Express and United States Post Office so that they can have
warm jackets to where when they are out running around."
CEOCFOinterviews:
How do you get your new product ideas; through your own R&D team or through customers?
Mr. Park: "Both. I would say it is 50/50. Sometimes
customers come and ask if we can make something for them. Just the other day a major pizza
chain asked us if we could make them pizza carrying cases for the car and we said hey why
not? We have done some tests on it and we have found that the pizza holds over a lot
better than keeping it in those pizza delivery cases."
CEOCFOinterviews:
As far as the product itself, are you still investing in R&D?
Mr. Park: "Right now, we are heavily focused on R&D,
but we have to cut that down to maybe about 5 to 10% of our focus in the company because
we believe that we have a winner on our hands. The time and the research that we have, we
want to devote into building new products and getting the products out."
CEOCFOinterviews:
In closing, what is your current float and are you seriously trying to attract investors?
Mr. Park: "Yes we are seriously trying to attract
investors. I think our current float is about 6 million shares. We have a very bright
future and a solid foundation when it comes to institution investors right now. I think
our revenues will speak for itself. In due time people will notice and realize the
potential we have. We are not in here for the short term. We believe that we have a true
winner on our hands and we want to take it and shoot it out to the rest of the world and
show the technology that we do possess. We want to make as many quality products as we can
to better the company."
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