COEUR d'ALENE - One of North Idaho's most consistent employers unveiled to the public its newly expanded production facility on Wednesday, and optimism was obvious.

Amid a sea of blue-smocked employees and blue balloons released into the sky, blue-jacketed Commodores from the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce cut the ribbon ceremonially marking the 54,000-square-foot addition to the keyboard manufacturing company.

"What this employee group has accomplished, and what they have done for us, creates the future of this company," said Dennis Staver, recently named president of Esterline's Interface Technologies group and Advanced Input Systems.

Founded in 1977 as Advanced Input Devices in Post Falls, then moved to Coeur d'Alene and renamed Advanced Input Systems, the company was purchased in 1999 by Esterline, an international manufacturer of products for the aerospace and defense industries.

Keyboards are still a mainstay, but with a far higher degree of technology.

After years of providing keyboards for computer manufacturers, in 2006 the company introduced the Medigenic keyboard for clinical applications such as hospitals. Designed to decrease cross contamination, the keyboard with its unbroken surface sold 20,000 units in 2008 and 54,000 to date, said previous president Al Yost, who was promoted to Esterline corporate group vice president in November.

"It has been a fantastic success," he said.

The 32-year history of the company has been "a remarkable success story, he said, and by 1987 it manufactured 750,000 keyboards for the IBM PC Junior. Other large clients came on board, and in 2002, Advanced Input Systems was the new name chosen and 50,000 custom switches were sold to the U.S. Department of Defense.

That has since grown to 170,000, with sales of more than $5 million to the department.

By last year, the company had grown to more than 300 employees packed into the original 85,000-square-foot plant.

Mike Mason, director of operations, led several groups through the building, already filled with manual work stations and automated equipment.

"This all was packed into the old part of the building," he said. "It was getting very tight, hard to move around in many cases."

Much of the product coming out of the plant requires hand soldering, but to meet customer demands all production is timed, he told visitors.

The added space, which will within a few weeks duplicate the machinery from the prior plant, has allowed for more efficient shipping and material storage, Mason said.

Henry Hildreth, manager of manufacturing engineering and also giving tours, said another benefit is an in-house machine shop for their specific needs, eliminating outsourcing from shops in Seattle. The added space means there will be room for about 500 employees if needed.

"Typically we don't grow employment as fast as product," he said. "But some things don't automate. We don't make Macs or iPods. We make custom products."

That has been the strength of Esterline over the years. Among the newest bits of technology coming out of the Coeur d'Alene plant is a special keyboard for use in gaming.

Traditional suppliers of gaming keyboards did not have Advanced Input's technological expertise, needed to create a keyboard capable of changing the functions of keys, said Brad Lawrence, who was named president of AIS in 2002 and is now chief executive officer of Esterline, headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. He returned for the grand opening of the plant, and explained that the company's keyboards can work with server-based games to change the function of a key to fit the user's needs.

For instance, he said, some games might require the spin of a wheel, but "spin" would not be appropriate if the game needed a "run" key.

Up to 200 different items a week can come from the factory, Hildreth said.

"We do a lot of changeovers," he said.

Esterline's $25 million capital investment in 1999, following the $40 million purchase of the company, was "a great deal," Lawrence said. It has allowed for a tripling of production, and turned AIS into an important part of a company that does $450 million in businesses with the military.

While that category of business technology tends to change slowly, in the civilian sector it moves far more quickly.

"Advanced Input is our window into that world of interface technology," Lawrence said. "It is one of the 30 most entrepreneurial corporations in the world. We expect lots of good things from this building."

If morale counts for anything, his expectations will probably be realized.

The employees moved 90 percent of the equipment to the expansion while continuing to produce the goods ordered by customers, Staver said.

But he reminded those who attended the mid-afternoon ceremony of a sign of the times - afterward they would go back to work.

"If I were still president we would take the rest of the day off," Yost responded, to cheers from the workforce.

But there were no complaints.

"We enjoy working here," said Ann Sweeney, a production worker for three years. "The respect in the workplace is great. Everybody, from the bosses to the people you work with."

Bob Ladd, who worked for AIS for 13 years as a sales engineer and retired last year, agreed with the assessment and approved of the changes.

"It is nice to see elbow room," he said. "They weren't exaggerating about skinny aisles and people stepping on each others' feet."

The company provides good wages and benefits, said Ladd, who worked with customers to provide cost analysis of their desired products.

"It's not just financial," he said. "It is the way they treat people. Employee satisfaction is a high matrix."