Powered by a pillow (local paper in Osceola, Wisc)
A spate of back pain 32 years ago turned Phil Mattison’s life completely around.
The former truck driver’s visit to an area chiropractor in 1981 launched an interest in an orthopedic pillow that turned into an entire business. These days, the Forest Lake entrepreneur, 56, owns a multimillion-dollar business called Core Products that manufactures some 450 orthopedic products for medical service practitioners worldwide.
The Osceola, Wis.-based firm employs 125 and expects to grow sales 40 percent over the next five years. Mattison offers motivational speeches on how all that happened.
“Life’s not about what you deal yourself —it’s about the opportunities you create for other people,” he said of his personal and business philosophy. “You do something that’s unique for you only once, (but) introduce somebody else to a brand new experience and it’s unique many, many times. And if you can find ways in business to create opportunities for others, everybody wins.”
Mattison started as an Air Force brat who attended 12 different schools in the U.S. and Germany before graduating from Edina West High School. He studied business at the University of Minnesota before leaving to buy and operate his own tractor trailer, but after injuring his neck at age 24 he took a break to start treatment with a chiropractor. The doctor introduced him to a unique contour-cut orthopedic pillow he was trying to market and talked Mattison into taking over sales.
In 1988, Mattison then founded Core Products in Vadnais Heights, soon expanding manufacturing and distribution facilities from 5,000 square feet to 15,000. Financial advisors then recommended the firm move to Wisconsin to take advantage of tax breaks across the border.
Built in 1996, the new Osceola facility was 25,000 square feet and originally employed 25. Through the years it significantly expanded its product line, added contract sewing for others and bought a second factory in Chetek, Wis. Today most products are manufactured in Wisconsin, though materials come from all over the world. About 10 percent are sold overseas. A very small percentage are sold retail via the firm’s website, but most are sold to health care professionals like chiropractors and physical therapists. The aging baby boomer market has been a boon.
The top-selling product of the 450 available (1,200 including variations) remains the Tri Core Cervical Pillow ($34 to $48) designed to relieve neck pain and align the spine during sleep. But the line includes everything from traction kits to maternity belts to electric massagers.
What’s in the five-year plan? Mattison will only confirm revenues are somewhere south of $13 million, but did project 40 percent sales growth in the next five years via “innovative new products and better marketing materials.”
He’s enthusiastic about Core Products’ new back pain relief device called the WiTouch Wireless TENS Unit ($149) that can be worn under clothes. Previously available only by prescription, the battery-powered unit uses electrical stimulation to suppress the transmission of nerve pain. Core Products recently bought a third of the Chatanooga, Tenn. factory making the product.
Mattison noted he’s been happy living on Forest Lake for 25 years but will move to Wisconsin within a year to circumvent Minnesota tax laws requiring owners of S Corp businesses, LLCs and sole proprietorships to report business income on their personal tax returns. Recent changes would raise resulting business taxes by 25 percent, he said, in addition to large increases in federal tax rates.
“This is a wonderful lake to live in, and Forest Lake offers a lot of advantages,” he said. “My wife is not at all happy (about moving). (But) the tax burden is so high in Minnesota with these new rules, it doesn’t make any sense to stay here. A lot of Minnesota business owners are starting to look at relocating homes.”
Mattison and wife Kathleen, a dental hygienist training to become a dentist, have three daughters who graduated from Forest Lake Schools: Margaret, 21; Meredith, 23 and Monica, 24. In his spare time, Mattison likes to hunt, fish, golf and travel, particularly by flying his twin Cessna. He also teaches flying out of the Osceola Airport and at press time was piloting a 10-day flight to the Arctic Circle with a dozen other people, including Brian Schanche of Lino Lakes’ Adventure Seaplane. It marks his fifth trip to the Arctic. He’s also flown as far south as Key West.
“It’s an absolute hoot,” he said before he left. “We’ll end up at an abandoned fishing camp. It probably includes dealing with bad weather and nice weather, problems finding fuel and somebody will have a mechanical problem. We’ll see polar bears, caribou, musk ox, catch enormous fish, go out on boats, swim with beluga whales.”
His back pain? It’s still there, he said, but he’s proactive in treating it — and of course has all the tools.
“I exercise vigorously,” he noted. “If my health goes away, so does my (pilot’s) license. I want to keep living the life I’m living.”
For more information on Core Products, access www.coreproducts.com.
Mattison’s motivational speaking points
The entrepreneur discusses three things children should unlearn, including:
1) Don’t talk to strangers. “It gets in our way. We teach kids to be paranoid. Is it any wonder all our kids spend their time communicating with their thumbs instead of their brains?”
2) Don’t daydream. “Everything we do in life starts with a daydream; why don’t we teach kids to daydream big? Look how it worked out for Steve Jobs.”
3) Don’t run with scissors. “We teach kids not to take risks when they’re thinking about buying a business or a car, or going to school too far away. Run hard when you’re young. I wish my business was bigger already and I’d taken more risks sooner.”