New Waterpik's old home.

• Author: GRAHAM, SANDY
• Position: Company Profile

THE COLORADO COMPANY THAT INVENTED THE PULSATING SHOWERHEAD RETURNS TO WHERE IT HAD BEEN ALL ALONG.

For the first time in 32 years, Waterpik of Fort Collins is on its own.

The company that created its namesake oral irrigator and the Original Shower Massage was founded in 1962 by a former Colorado State University engineer and a dentist. In 1967, the fledgling business, then operating from a rented house, became part of Teledyne Inc., later Allegheny Teledyne Inc. (NYSE: ALT)

There Waterpik stayed, barely a blip on the financial screen of the $3.9 billion-a-year aerospace and metals conglomerate, until last year. Last November, declaring it wanted to "concentrate on its core business," Allegheny Teledyne spun off Waterpik, plus three other units that make industrial heating systems, and swimming pool and spa products.

Waterpik Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PIK) was born.

"Every day is a new adventure. We have a lot of changes going on," understated Robert A. Shortt, the new Waterpik's personal health care products division general manager. The new corporation maintains headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif., but Shortt's critical division calls Fort Collins and Loveland home.

Waterpik continues to employ nearly 1,000 Coloradans in its Northern Colorado facilities. There, in bright, chilly rooms devoid of decoration, workers nimbly assemble, test, package and ship nearly all the water filters, showerheads and dental care products Waterpik sells.

To an outsider, it looks as if the swiftly working assembly lines are doing the same old things with the same old products. But big changes are occurring in product development, manufacturing and -- especially -- attitude.

Employees have begun to realize the paternalistic corporate overseer is gone. And Shortt, who joined the company in July 1999 from CSK Auto Marketing and Commercial Sales, isn't going to take Allegheny Teledyne's place.

"There's this idea somehow that people are waiting for me to change everything," he said. "We have to do it together.

"We need a greater sense of urgency around here. We need to increase our speed," he said.

Shortt doesn't just mean on the production line. Focus groups with Waterpik customers forced his realization that the company had "incredible" brand recognition on which to capitalize. But it hadn't really pushed new products. Nor had it expanded markets for old products like the Flexible Shower Massage, a goose-necked showerhead that was a big seller when it was...