Calvert Technologies Inc., the 28-year-old West Plains automated-systems integrator and manufacturer, has closed its doors, and its owners, George and Judy Calvert, have filed under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to liquidate their assets.


The couple filed for protection from creditors in U.S. Bankruptcy Court here last month, and a creditors meeting stemming from the filing was scheduled to be held earlier this week. The filing listed the couples assets and debts broadly, with both at between $1 million and $10 million, and identified 160 creditors. It said the Calverts believe there wont be any funds available for distribution to unsecured creditors.


George Calvert, reached at home by phone, declined to comment on the bankruptcy case.


Bankruptcy court documents indicate that the Calverts intend to abandon a 2-year-old building in Airway Heights where the business had been housed. Inland Northwest Bank and the U.S. Small Business Administration hold liens on the property that exceed its liquidation value, the documents say. The building now is vacant and is being listed for sale by Tomlinson Black Commercial Inc.


In a letter to creditors last fall, George Calvert, CEO of Calvert Technologies, said the company had slashed its work force, cut other overhead expenses, and set up a creditor payoff plan in an attempt to overcome financial woes.


He said in the letter that the company had grown too rapidly after buying an electronic jail systems division from Telect Inc., of Liberty Lake, in November 1998, then lost $400,000 on a large contract job in 2000, aggravating its cash-flow problems.


Calvert told the Journal of Business in a March 2000 interview that he had erred by allowing the company to grow at a 200 percent pace at the same time he was overseeing the construction of a new 20,000-square-foot, two-story building to house the business. He said that juggling the myriad cash-flow and other administrative demands had turned out to be a more formidable chore than he had anticipated.


Calvert Technologies moved into its new building, located on 21st Avenue in Airway Heights, in January 2000.


At that time, the company employed about 30 people at its new headquarters and another 10 to 20 electricians in the field, with that number fluctuating based on need.


The Calverts founded the company in 1973 at their home north of Fairchild Air Force Base, and it served initially as a manufacturers representative, marketing high-tech industrial products. It began designing, building, and installing control panels and related systems for water, wastewater, manufacturing, and food-processing plants in the mid-1980s, and later broadened into other industries.


It wasnt until it bought the Telect division, though, that it began to grow rapidly. That acquisition and the hiring of 14 former Telect employees gave the company the expertise to diversify more into general data communications, including the installation of video, card-access, fire, and fiber-optic systems, Calvert said.