Newton’s Full Vision manufactures treadmills for medical field

With a name like Full Vision, you might expect a company to produce eyeglasses or contact lenses.

Instead, Full Vision makes treadmills for the medical field and metal parts for heavy construction equipment and other devices.

General manager Doug Scheible says there’s “a very interesting story” behind the name. Started by Hesston farmer Elmer Stucky’s family in 1958, the company originally made after-market cabs for tractors and combines.

“He developed fully enclosed glass cabs,” said Scheible, who has been with the company for five years. “An early customer said, ‘This is nice, I have full vision.’

“That’s how the name stuck.”

Full Vision was bought by a Texas couple, Peter and Patty Benson, in 1997 so that they could use its metal fabricating capabilities to make the Trackmaster line of treadmills for the medical field. Full Vision also makes treadmills sold under different names by companies that add diagnostic equipment to them, as well as treadmills used for rehabilitation.

If you’ve ever taken a treadmill stress test, you’ve likely walked on one of Full Vision’s products, Scheible said.

“Domestically, there is pretty limited competition,” he said. “We have some competitors in Europe.”

The company no longer makes many cabs, but it fabricates metal tubing for manufacturers in several industries. Rollover protection structures – known as ROPS in the industry – for heavy construction equipment are one of Full Vision’s primary products.

“Tube bending and tube laser cuts – that’s really our core competencies,” Scheible said.

Full Vision has 120,000 square feet of manufacturing and assembly space in two buildings just off I-135 and U.S. 50 in Newton. It now employs about 80 people, a number that is expected to rise because of a recent partnership with GE Healthcare. GE will use Trackmaster treadmills in the United States and Canada.

“We’re growing right now as we speak,” Scheible said.

The company already sells about half its product in foreign markets, shipping treadmills to Europe, China, Australia, Iraq and other countries, he said. Scheible said diagnostic cardiology “is global in nature and resistant to economic factors.”

Selling in so many markets means complying with a lot of different regulations. In the United States, the company’s treadmill is considered a Class B medical device.

Institutional treadmills have more speed and incline options than those found in fitness facilities, Scheible said. The company does not make fitness treadmills.

Full Vision employees will soon have a bigger stake in the company’s success. The Bensons recently created an employee stock ownership program, with all of the ownership to transfer to employees early next year as part of their retirement plans.

“We’re all excited about that,” Scheible said.

This story was originally published April 26, 2017 at 4:49 PM with the headline "Newton’s Full Vision manufactures treadmills for medical field."