It's about time
Tom Marak never tells his customers what to put inside their customized time capsules.
Sometimes, he doesn't even ask what they chose.
Marak, longtime owner of Time Capsules in Prospect, knows the potential contents of his company's product can be wild and wonderful or imaginative and intimate.
But they're not for his eyes.
The contents of a time capsule are picked for some unforeseen future person.
They're for the eyes of an upcoming generation of students at a school, parishioners at a church or employees of a company.
"You can, in a time capsule, give a first-person report to a descendant that you will never see to tell them what life was like back then,"Marak said, referring to now.
Marak's business, which plays heavily into it's "It's about time" motto, has been around since 1986.
Annually, the one-man company sells about 30 custom-made time capsules.
Marak recognizes it is not uncommon even today for folks to use little more than an empty coffee can as a time capsule, but his custom capsules cost no less than $1,000.
The high end, Marak said, can be as pricey as the customer chooses, depending mainly, but not solely, on size and shape.
Marak, who subcontracts the metalworking, constructs all of his time capsules from hermetically sealed 14-gauge, 316 stainless steel.
His capsules are designed to withstand humid or salt-laden atmospheres, pollutants and pressures.
He personally fills the insides with special chemicals — his patented "vapor phase Deacidification" process — to preserve the container's contents.
The process chemically treats the contents with a mild organic alkaline substance, which neutralizes the acidity of paper and renders its life expectancy 25 to 40 times greater than untreated paper, Marak claims.
The chemicals can help safely store everything from old-fashioned paper products to state-of-the-art computer ware, he said.
Marak's product literature boasts a 500-year guarantee, and the price sometimes includes a personal visit from Marak.
His customers over the years have ranged from basketball teams, church and civic organizations to museums, companies, states and private households.
But all of his variety of customers have one thing in common:They're marking an occasion.
Marak said people generally chose to load up a time capsule when they're celebrating an anniversary, new building or other memorable occasion.
"I have only happy customers,"he said.Marak said his unique product has brought him into the company of senators and celebrities, Indians and Carribeans.His capsules are underwater, underground and on display worldwide.Among his customers are the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas and the Flight 587 Memorial in New York City.Marak's capsules often are engraved with company logos or personalized pictures."Businesses will sometimes pick a time capsule to send the message 'Hey, we are going to be here in 100 years,'" Marak said.Over the years, Marak has seen his capsules stuffed with all kinds of items from the expected love letters and newspapers to truly individual items such as an Indian head dress and a firefighter's uniform."There are no bad ideas," he said.One time, a Pittsburgh customer buried a check for $1 million written to his children, Marak said.But, Marak said he does not always ask what is going into the capsules.And in some cases, even his client's name remained anonymous to him. He said he delivered a time capsule, as requested, but asked no questions.Marak, who first owned a plumbing and air conditioning business in Pittsburgh, said he came across the time capsule idea by chance.He was on a Board of Trade in a Pittsburgh neighborhood that was interested in burying a time capsule, but could not find a good one.Marak said he parleyed the research he did about chemicals and history into a now successful second career that has served him well for decades.And, in the time Marak has been in business, one of his capsules already has been buried, dug up on an anniversary and reburied with updated mementos.But there is at least one place you will not find a time capsule:Marak's own yard on Bauder School Road.It is not as though he hasn't put a great amount of thought into exactly what memorabilia he'd like to archive in a time capsule of his own."I just haven't decided the 'where and when,'" Marak said. "We all have time capsules. They are in our attics, our basements, in shoeboxes. (His custom made time capsules are) just a way to guarantee the life of those items from fire, flood or theft long after you are gone."
