Turning Down the Noise: Kernersville company will start marketing a modular sound-absorption product

KERNERSVILLE -- One day in the summer of 2008, Susan Boyd and Daniel C. Smith were watching a brick mason in Raleigh install a sound-barrier one brick at a time.

At the time, Boyd had co-founded and Smith was a structural engineer for ProConcepts Inc., a company that made commercial modular buildings. While watching the bricklayers, Smith got the idea that a product they were using on modular buildings would simplify the brick-laying process.

At the same time, Boyd and her ProConcepts partner, Tonya Stratton, had been hearing and reading about complaints about noise pollution in North Carolina.

So the two women got together with Smith about his idea and some on their own to talk about ways to absorb sound. Eventually, the three teamed up, after Stratton and Boyd sold ProConcepts, to start Paragon Noise Barriers Inc. in January 2009.

In January, Paragon will start a sales and marketing campaign, making its product, Noise D-Fence, available to the public. The company plans to launch another noise-reduction product, Q-Zone, which is still in development, about six months later.

"The barriers that we are producing are designed to not just repel sound waves, as is usually done, but to absorb them -- a much more effective method of reducing noise pollution," Stratton said.

Stratton has about 15 years of experience working in the commercial modular-building industry. She and Boyd opened ProConcepts in 2001.

Noise D-Fence is for use along highways and interstates. Paragon would typically try to sell its product directly to contractors who do projects for the N.C. Department of Transportation. It also might try to bid on state contracts.

Stratton estimated that Noise D-Fence panels, which are 48 square feet each, would be sold to the NCDOT for $12.80 a square foot, on average. Boyd estimated that sound walls in the state could range from one-eighth of a mile to 12 miles of road. That would make a job for Paragon worth anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

Dan Smith, the product-evaluation engineer for the NCDOT, said that Noise D-Fence has been added to the agency's list of approved new products on a project-by-project basis.

"We're excited anytime somebody submits a product to us and it goes through the approval process and we approve it," he said.

Dan Smith, who is not related to Daniel Smith of Paragon, also said that NCDOT officials like having different vendors bring in different types of products because, depending on the situation, one could be better or more cost-effective than another.

"We're looking for safe, high-quality products," he said.

Boyd said that Paragon's barriers are meant to be aesthetically pleasing, and they hope that the NCDOT will consider their product for several projects in the state. They have set up meetings with the agency.

"We've received a lot of interest," Stratton said.

Boyd said that sound abatement has become a hot topic in parts of North Carolina.

"Noise has become a pollution," she said. "It's really affecting people's peace and quiet more so than it used to."

Q-Zone, now in the testing phase, will be sold for use as a noise deterrent around heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units that are found on the outside of homes. The product will be offered in a variety of facades to coordinate with various home exteriors. A price has not been determined.

Paragon is considering offering Q-Zone over the Internet primarily for residential homes, single and multifamily.

Stratton said that do-it-yourselfers would be able to buy Q-Zone as a kit and install it themselves.

For proprietary reasons, Boyd wouldn't give full details on the makeup of their products, but said that their coating and sound-barrier system is the secret key ingredient.

The interior is a light-weight expanded polystyrene encased in metal. The exterior is a special quartz-crystal coating designed by Paragon, or a brick veneer, depending on customers' needs. The coating and brick will be sold in a variety of colors.

QMF Inc. in Kernersville is manufacturing a metal component of the Noise D-Fence sound barrier, and Tri-State Foam Inc. in Martinsville, Va., will assemble the product. QMF and Tri-State will also manufacture Q-Zone.

So far, the business partners have invested about $500,000 in sweat equity and for the development, testing and launching of their products. They used a combination of money from investors and out of their own pockets.

Paragon, which has office space at 508-B Arbor Hill Road in Kernersville, has independent sales representatives in seven states, including North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas.

Paragon's owners are focusing on getting the NCDOT to use their Noise D-Fence product, but eventually they would like to sell it and Q-Zone to big-box retailers, developers, hospitals, playgrounds, day cares and churches. As the business grows, they hope to create jobs.

"Our goal is to be nationwide in two years," Stratton said.

Boyd said she would like to see the company develop an assortment of new products that absorb exterior sound.

"Just make it a lot more pleasurable to be outside," she said.

fdaniel@wsjournal.com

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