Long before Hugh Davis was building award-winning pickleball paddles, he was thinking about materials and what they cost the planet.
“That’s always been one of our core values,” Davis says. “Accelerating change for physical products toward more renewable, recyclable, and less impactful materials.”
As a teenager repairing broken paddles in his driveway and later as an engineering student experimenting with composite materials, Davis was already focused on how performance products could be made differently. Years later, that mindset has turned into statewide recognition. In December, the Michigan Sustainable Business Forum named his company, Revolin Sports, one of its inaugural Michigan Sustainable Business of the Year winners at the 12th Annual Triple Bottom Line Bash at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids.
“We’re super grateful,” Davis says. “It’s a huge honor. There’s a real responsibility in trying to lead new materials and make products better for the environment while still delivering high performance.”
Solving a problem:
Revolin began with a simple frustration. Davis won his first pickleball tournament in 2014 using premium paddles that kept breaking. Instead of replacing them, he began repairing and modifying them.
“My buddies would break their paddles and say, ‘Hey, can you fix this?’” Davis says. “I was tinkering with equipment before I even knew this would become a company.”
That tinkering turned into nearly a decade of research and development. Revolin tested more than 250 material combinations and built over 400 prototypes, applying engineering to create paddles made of materials that mimic natural structures found in plant fibers and volcanic rock.
Source: https://thelakeshorewm.com/revolin-sports-turns-sustainable-vision-into-award-winning-holland-pickleball-company/