Costa Mesa Firm Lays Off 98 : Datapower Closes as Bank Calls In Loan

Datapower Inc., a Costa Mesa manufacturer of power supplies for computers and industrial control systems, laid off 98 workers and closed its doors this week after doing business in Orange County for 20 years.

The company was forced to take the step after Bank of the West called in a $2.2-million loan, Edward Blackmun, president of the company, said.

Blackmun resigned on Tuesday after turning control of the company’s assets over to the bank. Those assets served as collateral for the loan.

Blackmun joined Datapower in 1987, after the company had experienced several years of losses.

“I’ve put in 17-hour days for 20 months. I believed in this company and thought I could turn it around,” he said.

Blackmun said the company was saddled with heavy interest payments and was burdened by a perpetual shortage of cash reserves.

“You can make a good case for why we failed. But the bottom line is, we have to take the heat,” Blackmun declared.

Bank of the West had a tie on the company’s assets since 1983. The company went public in 1981, when it lost $881,000 on $5.2 million in sales. In 1984, the company earned $506,000 on $15 million in sales, its best year, but went on to suffer heavy losses. In 1987, for instance, the company lost $7.5 million on $5.2 million in sales.