Goldsmith & Eggleton celebrates 50 years in business

WADSWORTH, Ohio—Goldsmith & Eggleton has been a long-standing fixture in the rubber industry.

What started as a small family business has continued to grow and expand into new markets, and in 2018 will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Rob Eggleton, business manager elastomers—reprocessed, Channel Prime Alliance and second-generation G&E owner, credits the small company's flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit for its success, saying the firm has been able to focus on market demand and seize available opportunities.

"G&E has always been in the raw materials business," he said.

"Throughout the years we've been merchant traders, distributors of plastic resins and rubber chemicals. We've distributed prime elastomers, resold offgrade and secondary polymers. At one point we entered the custom mixing business. We manufactured our own line of TPE's.

"The G&E business in Wadsworth has been focused on manufacturing reprocessed elastomers and manufacturing carbon black masterbatches for some time now."

Finding a niche

G&E has existed in many spaces during its 50-year run, but it started off with just an idea. While working together at Muehlstein, Allan Goldsmith and Bob Eggleton—Rob Eggleton's father—decided to branch out on their own in 1968 to service the need for distribution of raw rubber materials to a growing rubber industry.

"They saw a couple niches or commercial avenues that Muehlstein either didn't want to participate in or were reluctant to participate in," Rob Eggleton said, "so they started the company basically under that premise … what can we do as two individuals and what can we do better than a larger company."

Shortly after the company launched, Joe Fagan and Marvin Weintraub came on as equal partners. Richard Data served as operations manager. Originally, the company set up shop in downtown Akron and then began leasing a manufacturing complex in Wadsworth in the mid-1980s. The Wadsworth location became the company's first serious entry into the reprocessing business.

The philosophy of filling the evolving needs of the market proved worthwhile for the company.

"We've always been able to shift our priorities," Eggleton said. "We've been able to reinvent ourselves. As the markets change, we change with them.

"As certain products or demand for materials dries up, we're able to roll with that and reinvent in another business unit or a way to take something to the market."

Even with a spirit of embracing change, one event forced the company to make an abrupt change. In 1991, a catastrophic fire at the Akron site created a significant and long-lasting shift for the company.

"What it did was forced us to move here to Wadsworth, and Wadsworth had mixing equipment in it," Eggleton said.

The facility, at 300 First Street in Wadsworth, had three internal mixers already in place. That is when G&E began manufacturing and now operates a carbon black masterbatch and reprocessing facility.

"We took what was a rudimentary reprocessing operation and turned it into a very sophisticated, technically-specified product line that we sell," Eggleton said.

Next generation

Both Eggleton and original partner Joe Fagan's son, Michael Fagan, came onboard the business and eventually became second-generation owners. Eggleton said they bought out his father, who was the last surviving partner, in 1997.

Neither son went to college to be in the rubber industry, but "having fathers in the business who encouraged their sons or daughters to come in, there's the opportunity. And there's something about the rubber industry. Once you get in it, you're in it," he said.

But, they did not enter the business as partners, they worked their way up.

"Michael and I have both done every job in this company," Eggleton added.

"We've gone from lifting bales to sweeping floors to running equipment to customer service to lab to selling to management. The founding partners believed you need to learn the business. It doesn't matter who you are or what your last name is, you have to learn it from the bottom up. And they were so right."

Eggleton said he came on as a sales representative when a team member was leaving. Both father and son agreed to one year and if it didn't work out, they'd amicably part ways, professionally.

"Well that was October 1988 and here it is April 2018. I fell in love with it and it's been my life ever since and I think Michael would tell you the same thing," he said.

Eggleton said one of the biggest moments for him at the company was this January when Fagan retired.

He has no immediate plans to follow in his footsteps. Eggleton said he loves his job, but if he makes the decision to retire he is confident that G&E has the talent to continue its momentum.

One of the significant changes the second generation saw in its tenure was in 2012, when it decided to sell the company to Ravago Holdings America and aligned with Channel Prime Alliance as its sole distributor.

Eggleton said G&E had reached a critical mass in terms of sales and growth. They knew their next step would be a big one. Concurrent to that, Ravago was considering a rubber footprint in North America. The companies agreed the most logical way to move forward was to join forces.

"We traded technology throughout the years, even before we were bought," Eggleton said.

The relationship started well before the purchase, Eggleton said, as G&E considered Ravago's reprocessing plant in Arendumk, Belgium as a sister plant.

"It's really been a good experience," Eggleton said about Ravago.

"One thing that struck Michael and I when the overtures were being made was how similar the cultures were and that was very important to us. The employees here felt like family members and I got the same vibe from the Channel people and the Ravago people so it was definitely similar values and corporate culture."

Industry shifts

While the company has quality employees in place, Eggleton noted one trend he sees in the industry is the difference in bringing younger people into the rubber business, specifically in the carbon black, rubber and oil side.

"It's not only from a work force standpoint, but also from a technical compounding formulary standpoint," Eggleton said. "When I was growing up, there was a lot of mentorship."

The technical side of the business has changed because there are not as many seasoned chemists who are in the position to train, he said.

Eggleton added that another trend is the domination by custom mixers. Previously there were Mom & Pop shops with internal mixers and mills, but custom mixers changed that.

"A lot of that technical expertise has gone up into the custom mixing and it's not in the local plant anymore," Eggleton said.

"You may have a quality control engineer, but the guy that is doing the formulation is at one of these custom mixers. And that's not a bad thing, it's a change. And it might even be a good thing for the industry."

But there is one thing in the rubber industry that always stays the same: the fraternity feel.

"It's small enough that you know most everybody or you've heard of them," Eggleton said. "Or at some point in your career, you're going to touch almost everyone's business. And then, of course, there are the golf outings all summer long."

Continuous operation

With continued effort to evolve with customer demand, G&E became a 24/7 operation starting in January 2017. While Eggleton said this was the right decision, the company did have challenges to overcome.

"It was absolutely the right move," Eggleton said. "We needed to grow and short of building a new second Banbury, this was the next logical step. You fill up what machinery you have and then when that starts to near capacity, you expand."

While shifting to round-the-clock system was beneficial, there was a learning curve. People are working on weekends and machines are constantly operating, so scheduling preventative maintenance becomes very critical, Eggleton said.

"At, first we struggled with keeping enough raw material in house to keep the machine running," he said. "Getting the right work force married with the hours was another challenge, which we've overcome."

While the company struggled in the first quarter and possibly into the second, the company has smoothed out the hiccups.

"But right now, we are humming, Eggleton said. "We have that under control."

While the carbon black masterbatch side of the business is still on one shift, Eggelton said there is potential for growth.

"It is the asset here that we can grow and we continue every day we focus on bringing in new customers and trying to get that business volume more," he said.

"We are really looking forward to growing with the new industrial base, not just in tires, but rubber-based companies coming to the U.S.," he added.