Battery manufacturer gets charged up for expansion project

Nathan Staron was paddleboarding in the Rocky Point area of Tampa Bay a decade or so ago when a serendipitous encounter put him on the unexpected trajectory of becoming the CEO of a multimillion-dollar lithium battery company.

“I was just out paddleboarding, and I always ask people what they do for a living, just spark conversation,” Staron explains. 

In this instance, he came upon a six-person raft that had a battery connected to a trolling motor. But the battery was dead. Staron offered to tow the group back to shore and began chatting up the raft’s owner, who said he owned a battery company. 

At the time, Staron had completed aviation school with the goal of becoming a Medevac pilot. By the end of that initial offshore conversation, he decided to shift into the world of battery distribution. 

Fast forward eleven years, Tampa-based Lithium Battery Co. now produces approximately 200,000 batteries a year and brings in anywhere from $3-$5 million annually producing batteries for products ranging from robotic arms that build washing machines to sensors on SpaceX launchpads. 

Electric avenue

The next phase of the company is just around the corner. “I had a thought in April [2024], end of where I was like, ‘we need to build a factory,’” Staron says.

That facility is a 65,000 square foot plant off of South Westshore Boulevard in South Tampa. The property was chosen for its proximity to MacDill Airforce Base, since the company has several Department of Defense contracts in place.

The plan for the space is to expand from five employees to 50 in the three years to match the new production needs that will come from the five new lines of manufacturing being added. Each new line will need 10 employees, with plans to eventually add second and third shifts so the equipment can run at all hours. 

Staron appears undaunted by the task ahead — particularly growing the firm's payroll tenfold at a time when many business owners say recruiting and retaining employees is their No. 1 challenge.

Photo by Mark Wemple

"I'm excited to see it running. I've spent a lot of time overseas studying the manufacturing process. It's honestly something I have been dreaming about for a long time coming." He adds, "I would be shocked if we didn't expand the business and purchase more production lines to manufacture more capacity. We have been talking about this with Mayor Castor about additional space around I-4."

It’s a big shift for LBC and couldn’t have happened without the help of some local partners. Staron contacted the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council, which put him in touch with the USF chapter of the Florida Small Business Development Center. “I don't think I could have done it without them,” Staron says, “They're a massive help for us, and it also opened up opportunities.”

One of those opportunities included getting an SBA international trade loan, which is being used to purchase the battery pack assembly lines and battery analyzing equipment. “We wouldn't have been able to get that funding unless we had the cooperation with University of South Florida, with [the SBC] they were on almost every single call with the bank, going through everything, making sure we we were forecasting right, and all of our projections were spot on in stress testing, everything,” he explains. 

Now Staron is working with the City of Tampa and the Port of Tampa Bay to make the new facility a free-trade zone, a designated area where goods can be imported, manufactured, reconfigured and exported without as many customs restrictions. This move is in anticipation of potential tariffs on imported goods. 

“A lot of our customers that we're talking with about this, they don't want to wake up in the morning and have a 60% tariff on their goods,” Staron says. 

The new facility will also bring in business from other companies that don’t have manufacturing capabilities. “Companies from all over contact us about batteries for their products. When they find out about our FTZ, they then ask us if we can manufacture their entire system,” he says.

Battery life

While the assembly and manufacturing of batteries is the name of the LBC game, Staron also has concerns about the end of a battery’s life. “There really isn't a plan on recycling,” he says. “There may be one or two companies that are taking batteries.” Although there aren’t many resources currently available, his recent partnerships with USF and University of Tampa have him thinking of future solutions.

“Any grants or programs available to solve those problems, like recycling, they open it up for the universities to collaborate with companies like mine and inject those students in and come up with ideas and plans to move forward,” he says. “So that's a huge part of this, is that we're not in this on our own. And you know, we can utilize the community to solve these problems together.”

One possible solution is called second life applications. “These batteries have a crazy lifespan, but in no way do these consumers ever utilize that lifespan,” Staron says. The technology exists through a battery management system that runs diagnostics to see the health of a battery. If a battery has decent capacity left, it can then be redeployed for another use. For instance, the battery in an electric truck could potentially be repurposed for a golf cart. 

A 2022 study from McKinsey & Co. predicted that the lithium battery industry could be worth $400 billion by 2030. During his paddleboard conversation a little over a decade ago, Staron knew he was on the edge of a booming industry. Now, with the knowledge that can only come with experience, he is ready to grow with it.