Best Places to Work: Ace Laboratories gives employees a voice of influence

RAVENNA, Ohio—For Ace Laboratories, the first time is the charm.

And when it comes to making Rubber News' Best Places to Work list, company founder and CEO Erick Sharp credits the team.

"This is the most exciting award we have achieved as a company," Sharp said. "To be seen as one of the nine best places to work in the industry after eight years in business is an exciting achievement for us. To know our team loves working here and feels it is one of the greatest places to work is an amazing feeling to me personally. I am very happy to be able to help provide that job and lifestyle for our team members."

With a service-oriented company like Ace Laboratories, the people are the company's product, and Sharp takes that to heart and invests heavily in them.

"The better and stronger our team is, the better service we deliver to our customers," Sharp said. "We do this by allowing everyone the opportunity to have a voice of influence; ensuring our team can maintain healthy work/life balance; ensuring they are compensated fairly; and have a shared value of making a difference in our world and building the team according to our core values."

Ace Laboratories is a privately held company owned by Sharp and a group of investors. The company was founded in January 2015. It started as a consulting company, and then expanded into laboratory services in January 2018. During that time, the company moved to Ravenna.

Ace is a third-party ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory that supplies certified testing and contract R&D services to the rubber, silicone, latex, plastics and asphalt industries. It also is certified by the Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC), a Miami-Dade-certified test laboratory, and is registered with the FDA.

"The company started as a 'one man band' in 2015. Today, Ace has 20 team members and many great partners supporting us. All our team members are based out of our Ravenna operation," said Sharp.

Sharp said employee satisfaction is a top priority for the company.

"Our team is our most important asset. It is essential that we invest in it just like we would any other critical asset," Sharp said. "We have invested a lot of time and resources into building the culture we have at Ace.

"We understand and value work/life balance. Burnout is the top cause of turnover in companies. We have a focused effort on ensuring our team can maintain the proper work/life balance to avoid burnout."

Communication is key for Ace. Sharp said that surveys are great and suggestion programs are resourceful, but strong communication is most critical.

Throughout the ranks of the company, they have weekly 1:1 touch points with every team member to ensure there is an environment where any issue can be brought to light quickly and then be addressed.

"We are a growing company doing things in new innovative ways," Sharp said. "People like to be a part of winning teams. We invest in the growth of our team and equip them with new opportunities that our growth provides. This also provides the opportunity to have a voice of influence in a small growing company. We provide a platform where the opinion of every team member matters."

Ace Laboratories also invests in benefits. including:

• Covering 100 percent of the monthly health care, eye care and dental insurance plans;
• Offering 401(k) match programs, company-supplied life insurance, and tuition reimbursement programs; and
• Providing generous paid time off programs with holiday, vacation and personal time.

In 2022, Ace added a new laboratory focused on construction materials, asphalt and latex. To support this expansion, Sharp said they hired four members of the former Corrie MacColl Momentum Technologies Laboratory, which was closed, and assets sold off at the end of 2021.

In 2023, the focus is on further expanding its analytical capabilities and internal IP development. As regulatory changes push new analytical detections, Ace is working to further expand its capabilities in this area. Additionally, Ace is working on some internal IP development centered around mitigating environmental impacts that may stem from polymer-related products.