Made in the Northwest: Mountain Dog making protective products

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. – Mountain Dog Sign Company in Spokane Valley, with its 13 employees and its mascot, a Bernese Mountain Dog named Jack, specializes in interior architectural signage.

“We do work with interior designers and architects, creating custom sign packages for just about any type of industry,” explained President Marshon Kempf. “A lot in new construction, multi-family, healthcare is a big one.”

It even does ADA signage for non-sighted people.

As a custom sign maker, Mountain Dog is always looking to solve signage problems for its customers. So when the coronavirus struck, Kempf said, “It was an easy thing to say, ‘Hey, what does the community need? What does our nation need? What can we do?'”

Kempf said it decided to start making a couple of new products in face shields and counter shields, using acrylics that can be sanitized.

“We were able to prototype them, get them out in the community to kind of do beta testing and make tweaks that would make sure that the products would work the way that they were supposed to to prevent the virus transmission.”

The counter shields are lightweight and can be designed with an opening for passing over things like documents and credit cards.

“They’re protecting their employees, as well as making the people that have been at home feel safe coming back into a business environment,” said Kempf.

Mountain Dog even has the capability to print graphics onto its face shields.

“So if you’re a pediatric provider, creating some fun little animal graphics or something to make the pediatric patients feel a little bit more at home was really a lot of fun.”

And, of course, the company is doing a lot of safety signage these days as well.

“Any of the COVID related, CDC directed signage, we’ve been able to create and get into the hands of the companies that need those,” said Kempf.

Responding to the community’s needs has not only helped keep Mountain Dog in business, it’s been extremely gratifying as well.

“Very proud of my team,” said Kempf. “Very proud of our ability to just figure out what we could do to help and be able to do that.”

And Kempf says Jack is just as thrilled, because he gets a treat every time a customer comes through the door.

“It’s starting to pick up and he’s happy to get more treats in his mouth these days.”

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