Company ExpandOS: (a dba for VerteX internal packaging solutions LLC).

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: TECH STARTUP

INITIAL LIGHT BULB: A mechanical engineer who's designed ejection seats for fighter jets, William Oliver developed a prototype for a better, greener alternative to the Styrofoam peanut in a Sedalia garage early in the millennium.

Oliver soon met Miguel Baldwin, a 25-year employee of UPS, and the pair joined forces, launched a company, VerteX, and started selling the product, ExpandOS, in 2005. "It was a no-brainer," Baldwin says.

Sold via service contracts in tandem with machines dubbed Expanders, ExpandOS is shipped in densely folded flat sheets, much more efficient than Styrofoam peanuts, which Baldwin likens to "shipping air in a trailer." Conversely, one truckload of ExpandOS sheets becomes 25 truckloads of packaging material after assembly onsite.

Baldwin serves as chief executive officer. Oliver is the four-employee company's vice president of engineering.

IN A NUTSHELL: Short for "expand on site," ExpandOS is "a highly engineered paper packaging product," Baldwin says. "There's nothing else like it in the world." He says the individual ExpandOS units interlock for superior protection, thanks to 38 holes and edges, when packed into a box. "You get this coagulation--I like to call it paper cement."

After signing a contract with a new client, ExpandOS ships an Expander to the warehouse. "Once they get it set up, we'll come to them and train their people on it," Baldwin says. But the patented machines are not for sale, rather handled with a service contract. The Expander then folds it and crimps the flat sheets into their final form.

Unlike Styrofoam, ExpandOS is recyclable and also uses paper from certified sustainable forestry. To mitigate moisture, the sheets are treated with a clay-titanium micro-spray. The product is milled in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., by GPI, and the Expander is manufactured by Westminster-based Metalcraft Industries.

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ExpandOS is a premium product, Baldwin is quick to note, about three times the price of Styrofoam. "It's a very specialized product. You have to...