Kalamazoo Manufacturer Earns Perfect Score
Kalamazoo --
A zero percent rejection rate
for the entire 2000-2001 fiscal year.
That achievement was recorded by Amazing
Acrylics, a Kalamazoo-based manufacturer of acrylic products,
in its work for The John Henry Co. The company makes
acrylic bud vases for John Henry.
With a total of five employees and three
partners (Tory Cobb, Steve M. Coleman and Sharon Ramlow),
Amazing Acrylics produces a variety of acrylic products in
addition to performing custom fabrication for machine and tool
shops and other manufacturers, both locally and throughout the
U.S.
"The secret is really the ability of our
well-trained employees to work closely with our customers,"
Coleman told MiBiz.
Amazing Acrylics is the manufacturing arm of
the company. The company also operates its own retail
division under the name Memories Ink'd.
Before retiring, Cobb was an economic
developer with the Creating Economic Opportunity (CEO)
Council, which later became Southwest Michigan First.
She was Michigan's Economic Developer of the Year in 1996.
Cobb told MiBiz that after years of coaching business
people to help them succeed, she wanted to get off the
sidelines and into the game.
So, Cobb started the company that would
become Amazing Acrylics in 1995-96 with Ramlow. They
decided to take photographs and make trading cards out of
them. In order to make the cards attractive to
purchasers, Cobb and Ramlow needed to find plastic or acrylic
cases in which to put them.
Supplier after supplier disappointed the
partners, so when the opportunity arose to purchase an
acrylics company in Battle Creek, they jumped at the chance.
Along with the company came several active
accounts. That is how Cobb and Ramlow started making
plastic and acrylic cases for other companies. And that
is when they realized the need for a third partner who was
better schooled in the world of plastics than Cobb and Ramlow
were. Coleman fit that bill.
"Sharon and I brought Steve (Coleman) into
the picture when we realized that we really needed someone who
knew plastics inside and out. And he does. That is
part of our secret of success," Cobb said. "But another
secret is getting out and meeting our customers in person.
You really have to get to know them personally and develop a
relationship."
Article published in MIBizSouthwest,
January 3, 2002
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