Nestled in a quiet suburban section of Vancouver, Washington, (Not Canada) just outside of Portland, Oregon, sits an averaging-looking office building. The current CRU (pronounced see-are-you) headquarters sits in a large office complex off Tech Center drive, right next to a doctor’s office. The sign on the building says “CRU” in white, surrounded by red.

You could drive by, as hundreds do each day, and not realize what goes on in that building.

Products are designed, developed, and assembled.

Testing, re-evaluation, tweaking, and then re-testing.

Ideas are hatched and brought to fruition.

Parts are received and made into products that ship out to resellers and customers worldwide.

After establishing itself in 1986, CRU’s products became the go-to devices for safe data transportation and physical data protection in government, education, and business markets.

Over the years CRU grew, adding other brands, like WiebeTech®, and expanded its offerings.

Bella, the unofficial CRU mascot, was a welcoming guide and ready to show visitors the highlights.

She took us to the “Batcave”, a quality testing room filled with gadgets and instruments used to put prototype products through their paces. In essence, to break them, and then, find out why they broke.

Then we followed her to the warehouse. We almost bumped into a beeping forklift with a full load. Bella barked and so we went through the warehouse pretty quickly.

We went into a production room, where several smiling faces were assembling some ToughTech® products. They petted Bella, then we moved along to her favorite room, the kitchen.

And while it may not seem like it on the outside, on the inside, there are hours and hours and innovation, creatitivity, and passion being poured into products.