Yakima Racks Begins Moving into Beaverton, Oregon Headquarters

Yakima Car Racks stated that it has begun moving into a Beaverton, Oregon 59,000-square-foot facility in Woodside Business Park. The company was previously based in Arcata, California. Company CEO, Jim Clark, said it required easier U.S. and overseas travel links to accommodate its growing business. Mr. Clark added that Beaverton and the surrounding area should make a nice proving ground for the company's trunk, hitch and roof racks for bicycles, skis, snowboards, kayaks and canoes, roof baskets and cargo boxes. Approximately 65% of all Yakima Racks are manufactured in a Tijuana, Mexico plant that employs 250 workers, with the remainder produced in other countries.

The company is a division of Watermark, which is solely owned by Atlanta-based Crescent Capital Investments, described by its Web site as a private equity arm of First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain. The Crescent Capital Investments website states "Crescent acquires controlling interests in companies with transaction values between $30 million and $300 million." Besides WaterMark, the website lists controlling interests in Cirrus Design, a Duluth, Minnesota manufacturer of single-engine airplanes; American Pad & Paper of Plano, Texas; Lee Industries, a North Carolina maker of road-paving equipment; DVT, a Georgia maker of assembly-line sensors used in manufacturing controls; Caribou Coffee of Minneapolis; and Transportation Safety Technologies, which has developed exterior obstacle-detectors for truck and bus drivers.

Besides Yakima Car Racks, the Watermark line includes Dagger and Perception Kayaks. Also located in Beaverton, Oregon are Nike, Columbia Sportswear and other outdoor gear and apparel makers.