Tucked away in a rural valley in Ashland, OR, where labor is hard to come by, fourth-generation, family-owned company Darex needed to add more products to its lines without hiring more people. The company designs, engineers, and calibrates sharpening machines for drills, knives, and the like, all under one roof. Brands manufactured there include Darex industrial bit sharpeners, Drill Doctor professional and DIY drill bit sharpeners, Work Sharp Outdoor knife and tool sharpeners, and Work Sharp Culinary kitchen knife sharpeners.
Darex is repeatedly voted one of the top businesses in Southern Oregon to work for, despite the fact that for a long time, many of its jobs involved repetitive, ergonomically unfriendly, manual tasks. In 2017, Darex Director of Operations John Griffin sought automation to take his most valuable asset, his floor operators, off of those types of tasks.
