Page 36 - MetalForming February 2013

Workforce Development\Marlin Steel Wire Products LLC
MetalForming/February 2013 www.metalformingmagazine.com
“Incentives at Marlin are not just based on pro- duction and output,” says Marlin Steel chief financial officer Alex Levin. “We are incentivized to grow and learn by cross-training—by building skill sets—which ties into the company’s strategic objectives. Tactically, we compensate our employees and incentivize productivity and knowledge, which adds value to the company, and adds to employee health and welfare.”
wire baskets to commodity products.
“We lost hundreds of thou- sands of dollars—it was a dis- aster,” says Greenblatt. “I was almost to the point of deciding to let the employees go and lose all my money. For 30 years, the company made bagel bas- kets and nothing else. I was about to lose everything.”
Literally in its dying throes, the company received a fortu- itous phone call. An engineer from Boeing had seen a Marlin advertisement geared for bagel basket clients, and thought a similar container could find use in the aircraft maker’s pro- duction facilities. With a single huge order, the business embarked on a new mission, providing custom fabrications to industrial customers.
With renewed focus, Green- blatt decided to invest in new equipment to meet new demands, and, about a decade ago, relocated Marlin Steel Wire to Baltimore.
employee standpoints, that we make things in Baltimore and ship them all over the world,” Greenblatt says, not- ing that the company exports 25 per- cent of its products. “We can do that and still provide our people with good pay and benefits. We provide medical and dental insurance, con- tribute to 401k retirement, offer vaca- tion and pay 100 percent for employ- ee education. We have a great team and have built an ecosystem that works.”
Total compensation for Marlin employees ranks in the upper quar- tile of similar business in the region, according to company benchmark- ing, or $10-$30/hr, according to com- pany officials.
‘Quality, engineered quick,’ the company’s Secret Sauce, according to Greenblatt, is the mantra that trans- formed Marlin. With nearly 30 per- cent of employees functioning as engi- neers and part designers, the company boasts expertise in providing cus- tomized products—from print to part to customer—in rapid fashion.
“When a Japanese automotive company wants us to export $100,000 of laser-cut parts, that happens because of our value-added engi- neering,” Greenblatt says. “It is worth it for a company located halfway around the world to buy from an East Coast manufacturer because we have moved the efficiency and productiv- ity needle, which is driving our record growth over the past four years.”
In fact, Marlin has been named to the 2012 Inner City 100, a list com- piled by the Initiative for a Compet- itive Inner City, to identify 100 high- growth private companies located in inner cities across the United States. Marlin earned the lofty status due to its five-year compound annual growth rate of 11 percent on rev- enues of almost $4.5 million in 2011 and exceeding $5 million in 2012.
As Marlin grows, it has increased its space to 28,000 sq. ft., recently upping the number of dock doors by 80 percent to allow simultaneous
couple pieces of old machinery in a small garage, the business looked like a moneymaker for Greenblatt, who financed his purchase via pro- ceeds from the sale of his home- alarm business.
“Based on the success of my for- mer business,” Greenblatt recalls, “I thought I had the Midas touch, and figured we could make bagel baskets forever. The business had no brochures, no marketing—just a fax machine and 1950s-vintage equipment. But I bought it in the middle of the bagel boom, and we were making money.”
Fate intervened in the form of the Atkins and South Beach diets, which, railing against carbohydrates, deci- mated the bagel industry in the early- 2000s. That development coincided with the dumping of wire baskets into the U.S. market by overseas manufacturers, bringing a huge drop in orders and essentially relegating
Today, the company, from its sin- gle U.S. location, supplies custom wire and mesh baskets, stainless- steel products, and other wire and sheet metal fabrications to all man- ner of markets, from automotive to home appliance. Customers have a choice of finishes including chrome, nickel, plastic, epoxy, zinc, brass, Teflon, Nylon, Halar and more. The company’s stainless-steel units can be electropolished for a shiny finish or delivered with a natural finish. Marlin’s industrial-grade wire and wire-mesh baskets, according to Greenblatt, are ideal for material han- dling, ultrasonic cleaning, sorting, degreasing and part storage. Clients worldwide include precision auto- motive suppliers, high-end medical and pharmaceutical laboratories, and industrial factories. Marlin also serv- ices suppliers to the U.S. military.
“It is fulfilling, from company and