Suite Spot for Nursing Moms

Konrad Prefab President David Jaacks specializes in what he calls "purpose-built environments." His company now manufactures modular suites in Springfield that give privacy to nursing mothers in public places.

   

Suite Spot for Nursing Moms Konrad Prefab President David Jaacks specializes in what he calls "purpose-built environments." With help from the Vermont Economic Development Authority and a partnership with Burlington-based Mamava, his company now manufactures modular suites in Springfield, Vt. that give privacy to nursing mothers in public places. (Valley News - John Happel) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » Konrad Prefab partnered with Burlington-based Mamava to manufacture and distribute "lactation suites" which are designed to offer a private space for nursing mothers in public places such as airports and office buildings. The suites are currently being used in public spaces across the country. (Valley News - John Happel) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » Konrad Prefab received support from the Vermont Economic Development Authority to open a new manufacturing facility in the Robert S. Jones Industrial Center, in Springfield, Vt. The company specializes in modular and display units. Their initial product line are "lactation suites" which are installed in public places to support nursing mothers. (Valley News - John Happel) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » Konrad Prefab President David Jaacks exhibits a component for one of his company's modular "lactation suites" designed for nursing mothers. (Valley News - John Happel) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » By Patrick O’Grady Valley News Correspondent Saturday, December 24, 2016 Print VT SPRINGFIELD Springfield, Vt. — When a private, enclosed space for nursing mothers was placed in Boston’s Fenway Park a year ago, 20 mothers used it during the first game. When another one of the freestanding lactation suites, now being manufactured by Konrad Prefab in Springfield, was put in New York’s LaGuardia airport, it allowed a new mom to return to work nine months early. “When she found out I was the designer, she started crying,” said David Jaacks, 48, founder of Konrad Prefab. “She was so focused on being able to breast-feed, but she traveled quite extensively for work.” Jaacks said the economics of the woman’s family changed dramatically because she could breast-feed when traveling — adding nine months of income to the family’s bottom line. Jaacks has heard similar comments about the suites, which he mostly designed and has helped to sell and install. “I can’t tell you the number of times people said they are so glad to have the units so they don’t need to use a rental car,” Jaacks said in an interview last week in the 20,000-square-foot space in the Robert S. Jones Industrial Center on Clinton Street that Konrad Prefab moved into this fall. “I’ve gone to installs to see to how they have interacted and we have kept a record of how they function. I would say overwhelmingly there have been very positive interactions with end users as well as the people who set the units up.” Jaacks said the suites address a “social injustice” that has been around for decades against mothers who want to breast-feed their infants. “For the thousands of women who return to the workplace, there is a real bias if they would like to breast-feed their children,” said Jaacks. “Most have to rely on the bathrooms, but we don’t expect people to eat their lunch in the bathroom.” ‘Mothers on the Go’ Jaacks, a 1993 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design who holds a degree in architecture, has been designing and building equipment for use in everything from retail stores and trade show exhibits to point-of-purchase displays for more than 20 years. The lactation suites cost about $12,500 each and are sold and distributed by Burlington-based Mamava. They were initially conceived by Sascha Mayer and Christine Dodson, co-founders of Mamava, a spinoff of the design and advertising firm JDK, also in Burlington. Loosely translated, the name means, “mothers on the go,” using the Spanish verb “va.” Mayer said the idea was borne out of a personal need she and Dodson had when traveling for business. “Nothing really existed,” Mayer said, calling the bathroom a “disgusting” place to breast-feed or use a pump. “We have been surprised by how much interest there has been,” she said. “We have orders from airports, stadiums, convention centers and zoos. We hope this is just the tip of the iceberg.” In addition to Fenway, Jaacks said, the suites are in, among other places, 26 airports — eight alone at Miami International — and Citifield in New York, where the Mets play. Mamava also has an app giving the locations of the suites. Organizers of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas have ordered two units for the show in January, and Mamava also will have a unit on display, Jaacks said. “The federal government may be Mamava’s biggest client,” he said. “The VA buys them. We have military bases as customers — pretty much any place with female employees needs to have a facility.” Jaacks and Mayer said the requirement under the Affordable Care Act that companies with at least 50 female employees must provide a time and place for nursing mothers has contributed to the demand. Thus far, about 160 units have been sold. “We doubled sales last year and anticipate doubling them next year,” Mayer said. Retail Architecture Jaacks and his wife and children moved to West Windsor from Rhode Island in 2006, a year after selling his business, Exhibit A, that made trade show booths and counted among its clients a few small New England businesses that would soon become household names, including Nantucket Nectars, Stonyfield Farm and Seventh Generation. The success he had with those clients helped Jaacks establish a reputation in an industry that has evolved from mere store fixtures and point-of-purchase displays into what he calls “purpose-built environments.” “Retail is an incredibly competitive environment so you need to have as many advantages as you can,” Jaacks said. “So generally, architecture can help sell the brand.” Jaacks was serving as the director of business development and design at Kiosko in North Springfield, Vt., a maker of store fixtures, when the idea for a private booth for use by nursing mothers was conceived a few years ago. The lactation suites were first designed for Mamava with the help of the Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center in Randolph. VMEC then approached Kiosko to build them. At Kiosko, Jaacks did some redesigning so the suites had a more universal appearance for different environments. The current version, with its distinctive curved sides, measures roughly seven feet high, eight feet long and nearly four feet wide. The interior has a clean, simple look with seats molded from a solid surface to minimize seams. Customers can put them together in a couple of hours and plug them into a standard wall outlet for light. When Kiosko shut down in 2014, Jaacks contracted with a company in Rhode Island to continue building the units. Sales climbed to 140 units, which allowed Jaacks open his own production plant. “We have other clients, but Mamava is a sizeable enough order to establish a manufacturing facility in Springfield,” said Jaacks, describing himself as being “part salesman, part designer and part fabricator.” Small, but Not Claustrophobic In coming up with the design and settling on a final look, Jaacks said, he had to keep several things in mind that would be important to nursing mothers. “The most compelling aspect is, how do you make a space that is small but (does) not feel claustrophobic,” Jaacks said. “So you have to think about the quality of the environment for the mom, who is either feeding her child or using a breast pump, and make a space that didn’t feel claustrophobic that is hygienic.” Finally, Jaacks said, there had to be “brand recognition” so the suite didn’t look like a closet. Though the overall shape and interior features do not change, Konrad Prefab has the capability to print custom graphics on the booth’s exterior for each customer. Konrad Prefab can print one of its five standard artwork designs, or it can use one provided by the customer using what Jaacks called digital panel printing. A suite in the University Mall in South Burlington, for example, has a Vermont farm scene on the exterior. “If they have their own artwork we will print it. So we are blending an architectural environment with printed messaging for regional-specific design.” The suites are made of aluminum composite panels that are cut and shaped to the design. One unit takes about three days to build and is then packaged for shipment by truck. “The new facility is designed specifically around computer-controlled machinery, so we are using technology in an advanced manufacturing environment,” Jaacks said. “The cost of capital machinery is such that you really have to have a product that warrants it. But once you have that machinery in place, it becomes much easier to do other products.” The Vermont Economic Development Authority provided $180,000 in financing to Konrad to purchase machinery and equipment and to provide working capital as the company moved into the Jones Center, which is owned by the Springfield Regional Development Corp. Konrad Prefab also has the capability to use a digital printing technology called dye sublimation. “We add that dye sublimation to print to a solid surface material and that solid surface material becomes permanently marked,” Jaacks said, holding a lightweight piece that has the appearance of much heavier marble. “This is going to be table furniture for a women’s apparel company, so it looks like marble but it is not marble. We have to come up with material that is lighter weight but visually as stunning.” Dye sublimation printing on a solid surface “is going to be a real niche in the marketplace,” Jaacks said. “We can do reception desks and hotel lobbies’ interiors.” Though President-elect Trump, along with many in Congress, have vowed to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, Jaacks said he does not believe it will hurt demand even if the ACA requirement for a place for mothers who breast-feed is eliminated. “I think the social media presence has been tremendous,” Jaacks said. “Mamava has a tremendous amount of support and we are talking to a number of very large retailers who are talking about adding it to their facilities because the support has been so strong.”