North Coast companies vie for honors in Martha Stewart contest

Santa Rosa’s Oberon Designs had made embossed leather journals and checkbooks for years when longtime customers began to ask the company to make covers for their e-readers, tablets and mobile phones.

When the requests started coming in four years ago, owner Brendan Smith said he soon realized that here “was going to be a wave” of potential new business.

His sister, company vice president Becca Smith, said the opportunity came as a nation battered by recession and overseas competition seemed more willing to support certain products made in the U.S.A.

“Americans finally realized this is what happens to a country that doesn’t make things,” she said.

Oberon Designs is seeking to win new recognition for its leather products and pewter jewelry, all made in Santa Rosa. It has been named one of 1,000 finalists, including 15 from Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties, that are competing in this year’s Martha Stewart American Made competition.

Ten national winners will received $10,000 each, plus a trip for two to an event in New York City and an opportunity to be featured in Martha Stewart Living magazine. Nine of the winners will be selected by judges. The tenth will be chosen through online voting, which began this week and continues through Oct. 13. Last year more than 330,000 votes were cast, said a spokesman for the contest.

The local companies include a few widely known enterprises like Three Twins Ice Cream and Krave Jerky, but also a variety of smaller businesses that make food and other products.

Brendan Smith has been making leather products for more than four decades and incorporated Oberon in 1992. The company sells its messenger bags, purses and other products online, as well as at such local retailers as Corrick’s and Positively Fourth Street in Santa Rosa and Artisana in Sebastopol. As well, it sells goods to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.

Online sales have become crucial since the company offers consumers so many choices, Smith said. Oberon sells covers for 20 different electronic devices, with 30 images and nine colors for each. A leather iPad cover costs $136. A leather cover for a Samsung Galaxy mobile phone costs $37.

Years ago the company resisted pressure from corporate bookstores to cut the price of its journals, Smith said. Instead, Oberon has chosen to seek a premium for its unique products.

Even so, he said, “You need an edge these days, manufacturing in the states.”

Oberon’s edge includes an embossing technique that competitors have been unable to duplicate, Smith said. But it also involves the skills of the company’s 12 employees. The workers make the molds for all their pewter pieces and operate a $180,000 Italian-made computerized cutting machine that quickly calculates the best use of a cow’s hide and can precisely cut a small hole to encapsulate an iPhone case’s on/off button.

Both Smith and his sister said they hope the American Made competition will help more people learn about their products.

“Once Martha Stewart shines her light on you,” said Becca Smith, “anything can happen.”

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @rdigit