EATON – When Nelson Hardin brought Electro-Cap, a manufacturer of an electroencephalographic electrode application system, to Eaton in 1988, he did so because he thought it was a perfect fit for the area – just like the caps they create.

Some 35 years later, humans to horses, monkeys to sheep – all have used Electro-Cap caps. The caps’ electrodes transmit electrical activity of the brain to analytical equipment to help evaluate neurological disorders, traumas, medication, brain damage, learning disabilities, surgical monitoring and research to better understand how the brain functions.

A Preble County native and Jackson School graduate, Hardin previously worked in Richmond for approximately 28 years with the National Automatic Tool Company. “The company sold a couple of times and I was involved with the sale of the company,” he said. When he eventually left NAT, he and his late brother James went through listings of companies for sale, and landed on Electro-Cap in Dallas, Texas.

“I didn’t know anything about it until we we looked at it,’ Hardin said. “The fellow was in financial trouble. But we ended up working with him and buying the company and we moved it up here.”

Electro-Cap in the early years was located in a former tractor sales space previously owned by Bob Miller of Miller’s Supermarket. It later moved into a specially designed facility of its own.

Tucked back into the ground off W. Lexington Road, the 10,000 square foot Electro-Cap International office and manufacturing facility is a work of art itself. Designed by Eaton graduate Mike Rust, who is a graduate of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, the building is like no other in the city or Preble County. Built in the signature Frank Lloyd Wright style, it uses stylized designs, open space and built in furniture. It is also a veritable museum, housing more than 50 paintings – half of them museum reproductions of famous works of Monet, Vangogh, Renoir, Picasso, DaVinci and more.

“The design and location of the building affords as much natural light as possible for the office and manufacturing operations,” company literature explains. “The building provides a delightful and stimulating place to work for the employees and creates a substantial interest and prestige for Electro-Cap, the City of Eaton and Preble County.”

Electro-Cap products are used in the most prestigious medical research laboratories and medical schools in the world, as well as in 4,000 hospitals and medical laboratories. They are used by the National Institutes of Health, NASA’s space shuttle Columbia, the MIR space station and are being developed for use by the French and German governments for use on the international space station.

“We ship all over the world. In fact, I liked to tell Jack Cobb (of Henny Penny,) who was a good friend of mine, ‘we ship further than you do’ because we have a lot of caps on the space shuttles and have been on numerous space stations and on the International Space Station,” Hardin said. “About two-thirds of our business is international.”

Electro-Cap sells more than 12,000 caps each year and has distributors in more than 40 countries. It sells products to over 80 countries.

Products are shipped to every major city in the United States and Canada and to over 100 foreign countries. Products have been featured or shown on various television medical programs, included those by Newsweek, Life, Discover, Popular Mechanics and more. Caps are also being designed for use in a study of persons in crime and violence for the University of British Columbia, and a spot on the research will be featured on NBC’s Dateline.

Electro-Cap’s special projects have included work with NASA, brain activated technology like brain wave activation of a flight simulator, studies on brain fatigue in truck drivers and train engineers, studies on the effects of drugs and alcohol on the brains of adults and newborns, lie detector tests through brain monitoring, studies of premature babies and even studies on Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and AIDS.

“One of the things that we sort of have the market on is the conductive gel that used to put in in the electrodes. And we ship enough of that to do about 10 million EEGs a year worldwide,” he said.

The company began with six employees 35 years ago, according to Hardin, and currently has 20.

Though technology has made some changes to how things are done at Electro-Cap, “there’s still quite a bit of hand sewing,” Hardin said. “It’s a stretchy material and has to be hand sewn. It’s very difficult to use. We have five seamstresses. “But there’s other things that we’ve done to improve things and to increase the production necessary without increasing the number of people.”

The seamstresses have been with Electro-Cap for 28-35 years. The average tenure of the company’s staff is over 20 years.

The caps Electro-Cap creates have 256 electrodes on them, and they stock 80 different styles and sizes, according to Hardin. “We do premature baby size, then they go up to the football player with an extra-large head, so it takes an extra-large cap — we stock it all, and the gel is a big part of it.”

An open house to celebrate the company’s 35th anniversary in Eaton is being planned for September.

Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.