After almost a hundred years in the business of manufacturing all-weather paper products for people working in natural resource operation, Rite in the Rain is finally making a move into the oil and gas industry with materials specifically for that sector.

“Jerry Darling developed Rite in the Rain in 1915,” said Becky Groves, director of sales with Rite in the Rain, describing the company’s humble beginnings in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.

“The logging industry would bring their forms to Jerry Darling, he would hand dip the forms and then hang them on a clothesline and let the coating run off,” Groves explained.

“And then he would go fishing while they were drying. And the next day, he would take them off and go through the same process. It was a small cottage industry back then. And his wife, Mary Darling, actually hand-sewed their field books.”

Groves and her colleague in business development, Rachel Johnson, were attending the Global Petroleum Show (GPS) in Calgary, Alberta from June 13-14 to tell oil and gas industry folks that story and demonstrate how Rite in the Rain could help them in their day daily operations.

“We sell to surveyors, engineers, biologists, archaeologists – basically, people who work and play in the outdoors,” said Groves. “And in last two to three years, we’ve been promoting our product to the petroleum industry.”

Their products for the oil and gas industry include tally books, work safety forms and isometric grids that have proven quite popular so far.

“And there’s a geology book that has sixteen pages of reference material in the back,” added Groves.

Groves said that Rite in the Rain have been selling their other products to the energy sector for a number of years, but they didn’t start marketing those materials to that industry until they attended another trade show in Calgary two years ago.

“We came up two years ago and talked to folks to find out what products they would like us to produce in addition to the ones we were currently producing,” said Groves.

The oil and gas industry is now a small but growing percentage of their business.

Obviously, a lot has changed for the company since those early days of Jerry Darling hand dipping forms into the weatherproof coating.

“The coating, prior to 2000, was a solvent-based coating,” said Groves. “And since the year 2000, it’s a water-based coating. We’re completely environmentally friendly.”

Johnson indicated that natural resource companies that have a footprint on the land like having environmentally friendly options for all aspects of the work they do.

“It’s just important nowadays to be environmentally friendly,” said Johnson.

“I think it’s important for them to use products that are environmentally friendly,” she continued.

That includes using postconsumer wastes to manufacture their products.

“We generate less than a dumpster of waste per week in our factory,” added Groves. “And we’re proud to say that we’re environmentally friendly.”