Linda Muroski: Trelleborg leverages strengths to build success

AKRON—Is it better to know a little about a lot, or a lot about a little?

According to Linda Muroski, president of Trelleborg Global Healthcare and Medical, the answer is both.

"Be courageoues, take chances," Muroski said during her keynote address May 8 at the Healthcare Elastomers Conference, organized by Rubber News. "I've been in a whole host of different roles because I have not been afraid to learn.

"To make an impact, you can have depth of knowledge or breadth of experience."

For her own path, Muroski chose breadth, serving in an array of roles during her time in the manufacturing world, including stints with Johnson Controls, Engelhard and BASF.

Her time at Trelleborg, where she began in 2016, has been the best yet, she said.

"In my entire career, this is the best team I've had," she said. "And the team we have now has been able to create a better patient outcome."

The virtues of a well-rounded business include flexibility, continuity in supply lines and raw material procurement, and the promotion of diversity in the work force.

Such broad development pays off for the individual executive as well.

Muroski has worked in quality, sales and marketing, manufacturing, supply chain and project management.

Her business acumen has allowed her to serve in dual roles as Trelleborg's president, marketing Americas, and president, global healthcare and medical.

And this breadth of experience earned her Rubber News' 2022 Executive of the Year.

"I would not be Executive of the Year if not for the team that I have, in health care, medical or industrial," Muroski said.

Muroski continues to empower women and minorities in and out of the work force. Her accolades reflect this, with Rubber News' top honor for 2022 as well as her selection as one of Industry Era's 10 Most Inspiring Women Leaders of 2021.

In her seven years leading Trelleborg Healthcare and Medical, Muroski has championed diversity, fostered collaboration and empowered her team, resulting in greater accountability, increased employee satisfaction and improved business results.

Through these efforts, she has nurtured career paths and promoted several "exceptional" women within the business, creating a more inclusive and diverse environment.

The New Jersey native's leadership has been called "transformational" by her employees, and her ability to challenge her 800 employees (not including the 1,450 from the recently acquired Minnesota Rubber and Plastics) has been welcome for the Swedish company.

"As a company we want to become leaner and more agile to service the market," she said. "And how are we going to address these challenges?

"The most important part in our organization—our secret sauce—centers around our diversity and professional development.

"We are paving the way for diverse leaders. Diversity did not exist at Trelleborg when I got there. I am still the the only woman on the executive level."

And having diversity of thought provides empowerment, innovation—and even an improved bottom line.

"I had a previous boss tell me, 'Linda, whatever you do, do not hire a bunch of Lindas,' " Muroski said. "Because it's not just about male or female, it's not just about race.

"It's about diversity of thought, and holding your teams accountable ... otherwise you do not get any results."

Acquiring minds want to know

When Muroski joined Trelleborg Sealing Solutions in 2016, the Healthcare and Medical unit was in its nascence, a division with potential rather than an established presence.

Six years on, and Muroski has helped reorganize the segment into a streamlined, focused business, overseeing four major acquisitions, an increasingly adept work force in the manufacture of complex medical and biopharma components, and year-over-year increases in sales.

She has witnessed 10 acquisitions in her time with Trelleborg overall.

"So how do we build all this? For Trelleborg, it is not through an organic or greenfield (philosophy) but rather through a merger and acquisition strategy," said Muroski.

It's also about selecting the right companies to work with, like Minnesota Rubber and Plastics, which Trelleborg acquired for about $900 million in 2022.

With the acquisition, Muroski said Trelleborg is bullish in the health care and medical component manufacturing and biopharma market spaces, especially as they relate to single-use systems and designs and active pharmaceutical ingredient systems.

And for the most part, even the acquisitions at Trelleborg are about the employee—the human being behind the medical component development and production process.

"Typically Trelleborg looks for the family-owned business, more or less they seem to be the better partners," she said. "They want to make sure their baby is taken care of. Most family-owned businesses benefit from a loyalty to the team, and therefore they are loyal back. And we see that."

Muroski added that when Trelleborg makes an acquisition, it is not about headcount reduction.

Rather, intellectual assets are embraced.

"We are buying the company because they really did something well, and we want to leverage that," she said.

While typical corporate structures can demand obeisance, Trelleborg changes its structure—to a point—to meet the needs of the acquired company, Muroski said.

"And MRP does some really great things around the product and material development process," she said. "How can we change the way that we are doing business to fit them? MRP has strengthened our position quite sizably."

Muroski added that whatever the original owners were doing as far as social engagement, Trelleborg continues the community outreach.

"Whatever they were doing, we also do ... and we continue doing to support STEM with local high schools, encouraging future engineers," Muroski said. "When we make an acquisition, we are not buying brick and mortar—we are buying the talent that is part of that acquisition."

Such acquisitions—like MRP, EirMed L.L.C., Sil-Pro and Specialty Silicone Fabricators Inc.—have assisted Trelleborg in expanding its global footprint.

The health care and medical division now has eight manufacturing sites in the Americas and one in Europe.

"We like to say we are global, but we are local as well. Customers need that continuity in the supply chain," she said. "We need to make sure our materials can be provided across the globe.

"If an area in the Asia-Pacific region or in the U.S. cannot be accessed, we need to ensure continuity of supply—and the same quality of material."

And Trelleborg is still looking for similar family-owned fits.

"We are still looking," Muroski said. "Just last week, we finalized the sale of our wheel division for about $2.3 billion—so there is money coming our way," she said.

Muroski added that typically Trelleborg looks for "mid-range companies," with annual net sales of about $100 million or less.

"We are not looking for turnarounds," she said. "We are looking for well-run businesses. What we are tying to do is a be a full solutions provider."

Starting with innovation

The earlier a customer can come to Trelleborg in the development process for a medical device, with a single-use or API systemor otherwise, the better the outcome, Muroski said.

Trelleborg recently invested about $9 million in its innvoation center (Center for Excellence) in Northborough, Mass., and MRP's extensive research and development experience will play well into this focus.

"In August 2021 we opened our rapid development center ... and combined with the MRP acquisition, we are able to offer a full plate of customer support—from development, to clinical trials, to production," Muroski said. "The earlier the customer comes to us, the more we can innovate with design.

"We can even help them to trim costs up front, from the start."

Accelerating products to market faster may have been a function of the COVID pandemic, as companies were inundated with orders trying to respond to the health crisis.

But an increasing amount of other products still need to get to market post-pandemic as well, Muroski said.

"We are looking for solutions for our customers, and we have dedicated teams to do that," she said. "We are not creating a competing environment ... we are sharing our equipment and resources for testing and development—and really understanding the management process."

"These are the key differentials for us."

But there are challenges that lie ahead, Muroski cautioned.

APIs—such as putting a pharmaceutical on liquid silicone rubber—are life-changing innovations, but not where they need to be yet in terms of their development.

"And with less-invasive materials, like bioresorbables and topicals, we need big advancements here," Muroski said. "These will be game-changers in the industry."

Today, Trelleborg can bring products to market via extrusion, molding and sheeting.

Eye medicines and chemotherapy treatments, wound dressings and burn therapy all have benefited from Trelleborg's products.

"Smaller, smarter wearables require precision micromolding, and we are working toward that," she said.

Patient care, like Muroski and Trelleborg's dedicated employee-centrism, is a tenet for Trelleborg—and one that focuses on the person, the human being in each case.

"We have to listen," Muroski said. "We have to support and coach our people and organization. They have families on the outside, and it's a balancing act.

"If we can provide them with an entire approach, then they become more engaged as employees. Male workers are also fathers and they need leave, too.

"We have to listen to what the stressors are for people because we are paving the way for our families."