Guts, vision and going against the grain: Erick Sharp of Ace Laboratories is 2024 Executive of the Year

RAVENNA, Ohio—Industry disruptors can arrive as shifts in technology, innovations that initially cut against the grain and, after time and adoption, force change for the better.

In the case of 2024 Rubber News' Executive of the Year Erick Sharp, disruption has arrived as a bright young mind from the rolling hills of central Ohio, an entrepreneur who is reshaping the materials testing arena with his firm, Ace Laboratories.

As president and CEO, Sharp, 41, is forging a path in a corporation-dominated space, guiding Ace to an average of 30-percent, year-over-year growth since the company's inception in Sharp's garage 10 years ago.

"Did I feel like I was jumping off a cliff and building the airplane on the way down? Yes, it felt like that several times," Sharp told Rubber News. "But I am always of the mindset that we can accomplish bigger things by working together."

Sharp is upsetting the apple cart in other ways, bringing both youth and diversity to a male-dominated industry that carries an average age of 57 years.

With Sharp's "larger bowl" mandate, the 21-person, 40,000-sq.-ft. Northeast Ohio firm staffs at least 30 percent females and 30 percent STEM school graduates.

"The industry as a whole needs to benefit, and it needs the right work force," Sharp said. "Instead of siloing, how do we build this together? This has been a field where young people don't want to be in the industry. And, obviously, there has been a void of a female presence in the industry.

"So, for me, there has been a deliberate want to make sure that can be done. And in our case, it has performed great. We live and die by our core values. So that (dynamic) has to be there."

Doug Foster, director of technical services at Ace, said Sharp's defiance of gender norms is as intentional as his approach to business growth—and the two are inextricably linked.

"Erick is known for always challenging the norm and looking for new ways to do things," Foster told Rubber News. "His approachable and clear leadership style fosters a positive and cohesive team dynamic, creating an environment where employees feel supported, engaged and empowered to perform at their best."

Such initiatives have led to Ace being named one of Rubber News' Best Places to Work for two consecutive years.

Indeed, Sharp's focus on technical innovations in the independent rubber and silicone testing space has given Ace a reputation as a detailed and nimble firm—another disruptor in an industry where projects and products can be slow to develop, the time-to-market extended.

In addition to securing advanced testing equipment through millions of dollars in investments over the last decade, Sharp has developed custom systems for Ace from scratch, including HR solutions, sales programs and operational LIMS and MRP systems.

Curiosity and innovation have been a part of his ethos since he first assembled an Erector Set as a child growing up in rural Cambridge, Ohio.

"Yeah, I was the kid with the Erector Set," Sharp said. "I was always interested in what made things work, reverse engineering them ... and, can the things that you learn be applied to something different?

"New science was the pathway for me and always has been. Take electricity: once you understand it, you can apply the methodology elsewhere. So, I've always been interested in the new science, learning how it works. I love being a part of growing things and seeing the end results."

Foster added that Sharp is "reshaping the way the rubber industry approaches innovation."

"This growth has been driven by Erick's commitment to innovation and his exploration of modern solutions to advance the way laboratory services are offered," Foster said.

In the 10 years since Ace's inception in 2014, the firm has gone from a "one-man band" in Uniontown, Ohio, where Sharp and his wife, April, began their family, to a cutting-edge, physical, analytical and dynamic testing company in Ravenna.

Within the last year, Ace opened a construction application testing center on the basement floor.

But the seeds of success were planted earlier in the small towns of central Ohio, where Sharp's father worked (and traveled) as a pastor. Sharp's mother primarily was a homemaker, though she would be inspired later in life to return to college and obtain her degree.

Sharp, his older sister and younger brother appreciated the bucolic landscape that shaped their upbringing.

"Cambridge is Appalachia, a more rural area," Sharp said. "The neighboring school district was actually called 'Rolling Hills.' But even though we grew up in what would be considered poverty, I always had change in my pocket.

"Mowing grass, taking on a paper route, I always had money in my pocket. And normally, I hoarded it because you never knew when you were going to need it."

Sharp's frugality—a financial conservatism that would prove critical in developing Ace Laboratories—paid immediate dividends.

"I got a car, my license ... the money I'd saved came in handy," Sharp said.

And with that, the baseball card collector and Eagle Scout used his mobility to finish his junior and senior years of high school at a trade school, focusing on electrical engineering.

"There were only about 15 people in my class there, so it was a really connected group," he said.

From there, Sharp attended Muskingum Technical College on scholarship, also in the Cambridge area, ultimately achieving a degree in industrial engineering.

"They had electrical engineering, which was a bit narrow," Sharp said. "I did like the mechanical stuff over here (with industrial engineering) and the chemical engineering side over there ... so industrial engineering was a hybrid, a blend of disciplines."

Perhaps the biggest lesson he learned in college, he said, was that he could handle the rigors of engineering.

"The majority of stuff that I learn today, I learn by fire," Sharp said. "But what I learned in college was that I could do it. It is all about setting a higher ceiling for yourself. The engineering side taught me a lot about cause and effect ... and it sparked my curiosity of process-oriented technology."

Graduating from Muskingum in 2003, Sharp took his first rubber industry job with Edgetech I.G. Inc., a subsidiary of Lauren International at the time.

"I was working at a hardware store, because I had bills to pay, and someone came in and said Edgetech is hiring engineers," Sharp said. "I had no idea what Edgetech did. And I ended up working there through June 2011. All this rubber mixing and extrusion ... this was the first time I ever saw rubber manufacturing in my life."

Sharp started in process engineering: extruding, mixing and milling his own compounds for high-volume gasket runs.

"I needed to learn the science behind compounding so I could get a baseline of rubber and polymer science," Sharp said. "And I was able to apply that."

From compounding, Sharp went on to formulation, and from there he moved to product development. A particular success with Edgetech came when he developed the final iteration of an insulating window seal.

"We needed to obsolete ourselves (with that insulating component) before someone else did," Sharp said. "And we did that."

Sharp could see the writing on the wall when parent company Lauren International sold Edgetech to Quanex Building Products Corp. in April 2011, knowing he would eschew the slower moving corporate world for a smaller, more nimble firm.

This tack toward flexibility would not be the first for Sharp.

As it was, still with Edgetech and on a fortuitous business trip to China, Sharp crossed paths with Doug Hartley, who owned Portage Precision Polymers in Ravenna.

Hartley was looking for someone to run his rubber, and later silicone, operations.

"I was talking to Doug as I was working at Edgetech," Sharp said. "I knew we were going down a new path at Edgetech, and it probably was not going to be a next step for me under this new umbrella."

When Sharp joined PPP in August 2011, he did so in a senior role, "leading the charge as a change agent."

"That was exciting," Sharp said. "When I joined PPP, there was just the rubber plant in Ravenna. But from day one, Doug wanted to get into silicone, which he knew I did a lot of at Lauren/Quanex."

In 2013, Sharp helped Hartley start a silicone compounding facility in nearby Mogadore, Ohio.

"Erick ran my plant operations," Hartley said. "And he did a wonderful, wonderful job."

The PPP tenure, while critical in establishing the partnership between Hartley and Sharp, was relatively short-lived for Sharp. Another acquisition by a larger company was about to change his future once again.

And this time, Ace Products and Consulting—the first iteration of Ace Laboratories—would become a glimmer in Sharp's eye for the first time.

In December 2014, Hartley sold Portage Precision Polymers to what is now Hexpol Compounding Americas, and a transition period ensued.

Hexpol kept PPP's Mogadore silicone compounding location (later moving it to Akron), and shuttered the Ravenna rubber plant.

"With PPP, we either needed to make bigger investments or step up the rubber side," Sharp said. "So Doug made the decision to sell. I told him, 'you started this business, this is your family's trust, your baby. You need to do what you think is best. If you want to sell, I will help you down that path.'

"But I knew it was going to be Hexpol. And at this point, I was processing internally what I was going to do."

There are many benefits to a corporate position, Sharp noted, including capital resources and job security.

"But things also move at a snail's pace," he said.

Since the Ravenna plant could not simply be "turned off," the humanity that Ace employees would come to appreciate from Sharp was on display once again, as he stayed on for six months to taper-down the Ravenna facility, all while ramping up his own entrepreneurial efforts.

"With the scale-down, there was a personal connection, especially with the people there," Sharp said. "I did not want it to be a corporate scale-down.

"And we found (opportunities for) 95 percent of the people at PPP before it shut down."

At the end of the day, Hexpol never made Sharp an offer.

"And I am not certain I would have accepted anyway," he said. "So there was a mutual silence."

In nearby Uniontown, just a half-hour away from Ravenna, music from the one-man band was starting up.

In November 2014, just a couple weeks before the Hexpol acquisition became official, Sharp registered the name Ace Products and Consulting L.L.C.

"We were primarily consulting and development," he said. "For the first year-and-a-half, I did not have any machines. ... We needed to keep overhead as low as possible because we did not know if this was going to work."

The consulting was done on-site for customers, specifically as management consulting (in the polymer space) with 10-year outlook plans and vision-tracking.

In the latter part of 2016, Sharp rented space and equipment in Akron via a Bounce Hub connection, which allowed him to do some mixing and testing for customers, if by proxy.

"This was really exciting, helping other companies grow, but I needed more support—whether it was 1099 support, part-time work, whatever ... I was always holding off on an initial commitment until I knew things were solid," Sharp said.

By 2015, Sharp was all-in on Ace, having achieved a round of funding from three key investors—including his friend Doug Hartley.

"Erick called me—I was still doing some transition work with Hexpol—and said 'come here, I want to talk to you.' So I went to his small lab that he had, and we talked about investing in and growing Ace together," Hartley said.

As fate would have it, Hartley worked for Sharp for a year or so to help him get going, suggesting during that time the move to the Ravenna facility where Ace sits today.

"I told him I thought he'd be well-received in this area of Ohio," Hartley said.

Hartley remains an investor in Ace today.

"It's one step at a time for us," Hartley said. "Erick has taken over the first floor of the building, as well as the basement below (with the construction testing area). And he has plenty of room to grow."

To be precise, Ace has more than 150,000 square feet of room to grow in the 220,000-sq.-ft. building.

"Ace's customer base is very large," Hartley said. "Erick does things with large producers and very small customers, and everything in between.

"Erick has been a wonderful business partner, a wonderful friend. As I said, I think of him as I do my own son."

Sharp knew he had leverage with the investment group, and Ace moved into its first 6,000 square feet of the Ravenna facility in January 2018.

"I could build a truly functional lab that could do it all," Sharp said. "Now, every time we need to expand, we have the space to do it."

Like his initial leap of faith in starting Ace, there have been moments when confidence waned.

"We opened in 2018 (in Ravenna) and COVID hit. That was not in our plans," Sharp said.

Sharp's wife, April, has been foundational through it all.

"From day one, just me setting up on my own and all the way through major investments, she believed in me more than I did," he said. "And that worried me."

Ace Laboratories added analytical testing capabilities in 2020 with the acquisition of GEOAnalytical Inc., a company that tested soil and ground water.

"We built on this piece," Sharp said. "We made a deal that worked well for (them) and us. This gave us our analytical capabilities, specifically in compliance testing."

As Sharp was rounding out the talent for his company, he met Doug Foster, who was working at a DuPont location in Stow, Ohio.

"Doug knows every test method one can think of," Sharp said. "This speaks to the type of business that we conduct and the team that we have. For me, the biggest thing with hiring is that I should never be the smartest person in any area of the business.

"You can bring in a race horse, but if you don't let it out of the stable it won't win any races."

The current Ace iteration—Ace Laboratories—was christened in 2022.

As the company has grown, risk in decision-making has lessened.

But going against the grain requires no less courage or vision.

"I knew there was something big out there for me," the 2024 Executive of the Year said. "There were five doors there, and I did not have the exact pathway. I didn't know what door was going to crack open.

"For me, it's about knowing roughly where you want to get to—but you need to be flexible and nimble to change course to get there."