Employees at Forecast 3D like to have fun. Luckily for them, the company has a badminton court, a basketball court, a weight room and, in the lunchroom, arcade games.
The company sponsors several employee events throughout the year. Those activities have included disc golf, paintball, ocean and salmon fishing, white water rafting, sporting clays, darts, ATV excursions and kart racing, among others. Coming up: a day at the racetrack and a kickball competition.
Three or four times a year, employees converge on a restaurant for “Freestyle Friday at the Movies.” After food and drinks, people head to the nearby theater to see a movie of their choice.
“We also have barbecues here on the premises several times a year and those events will also usually have an activity like watermelon eating ... or a free-throw competition,” said CEO Corey Weber.
Forecast 3D, based in the oceanside resort town of Carlsbad, Calif., ranked No. 8 on Plastics News' list of Best Places to Work in the Plastics Industry.
“We believe having fun together promotes camaraderie, which is so important to a company like us,” Weber said by email.
There's also a serious side to the rapid prototyping firm, founded in 1994 by Weber and his brother, co-owner Donovan Weber.
“We put a lot of importance on general attitude when hiring new employees,” Corey Weber said. “Even if an employee is highly skilled but lacks a positive attitude, we will keep looking for an employee that has both. One sour apple can have a huge negative impact on an entire team.”
Forecast, which does prototype tooling and custom short runs, created 12 positions last year, mainly for growth, but also to lessen the workload on employees so they could “wear less hats.” The company now employs more than 80.
Forecast 3D is a dba of Product Slingshot Inc.