Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Plastics News China
  • Rubber & Plastics News
logo-pn-color
Subscribe
  • Login
  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • End Markets
    • FYI Charts
    • LSR World
    • Multimedia
    • NPE2021
    • K Show
    • Special Reports
    • Top materials of injection molders
      Recycled PET use by product category
      US PET, flexible packaging desintations
      Global fluropolymers additives market: CAGR
    • NPE exhibitors question handling of deposits for canceled trade show
      Exhibitors back NPE cancellation: ‘We couldn't take that risk'
      NPE2021 canceled as in-person event
      NPE reviews its options as pandemic prompts exhibitor to exit
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • What Keeps You Up At Night
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Videos
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • CEO Issue
    • Best Places to Work
    • Processor of the Year
    • Rising Stars
    • Women Breaking the Mold
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • Heavy Metal
    • One Good Resin
    • BRICS and Plastics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Getting back on the road
      How long will it take for EVs to replace internal combustion engines?
      Watching, and hoping, for progress in 2021
      COVID-19 stories dominate 2020 headlines
    • Kickstart: Microchips, masks and US manufacturing
      Kickstart: Bringing plastics, sustainability to the construction site
      Kickstart: Making more US beds
      Kickstart: Katherine Johnson, Perseverance, plastics and space
    • Heavy Metal: Coronavirus edition, plus the work of working from home
      Don't put off succession planning
      What's a good gift for your cobot? Batteries?
      Here's some big ideas to mull over the holidays
    • Green feet: Braskem partners with Dansko on bio-based clogs
      Curbell donates plastic sheet for prosthetics project in Ecuador
      Covestro volunteers build ramp for Ohio veteran
      Chase expands giving campaign in 2020
    • There was no choice but canceling NPE still a big deal
      The business case for producer responsibility
      Think divided government stalls plastics legislation? Think again
      ACC, NAM eye economic priorities in Biden presidency
    • Thermoformers: Would you believe a 12 percent gain?
      Just how big is thermoforming in North America?
      Changing names for compounders embracing corporate branding
      Diversity the key to outperforming the market
    • Thermoformers: Would you believe a 12 percent gain?
      The benefits of getting social
      Rising Stars shine bright future on industry
      Getting back on the road
    • Perspective: Plastics manufacturers — a surprising contribution to sustainability
      Plastics industry business owners: Listen to your future workforce
      Perspective: ‘Fake news' of a different sort?
      Perspective: Making products in the USA is good for the planet
    • Mailbag: Additional fees for electric vehicles ‘unfortunate'
      Mailbag: Where's the plastics industry's response to critics?
      Mailbag: Manufacturers struggling to follow COVID-19 safety rules
      Modernizing recycling infrastructure will benefit businesses as well as the environment
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
    • Maintenance can ensure efficient blender operation
      Dosing: Perfect for adding color
      Blending vs dosing: What you need to know
      Going low or high: Comparing volume
    • Colors and custom compounds
      In the laboratory: Compounding solutions
      Recycling content: Resins going ‘green’
      Compounding: Glass and other fillers
    • Dryer maintenance: Don’t err with air
      Dryers: Options for a shop’s process
      Dryer installation: Going central?
      Resins: Hygroscopic or non-hygroscopic
    • Electric injection molding presses: Efficiency is key
      Hydraulic injection molding machines
      Proper maintenance can prevent downtime
      Hybrid injection molding machines
    • Purging Hot runners: Open or closed methods
      Purging extrusion machinery
      Purging extrusion blow molding machines
      Purging: Chemical, abrasive and non-abrasive
    • Controls, special applications boost production, profitability
      Robot maintenance key for smooth operation
      High-speed robots: A rapid way to increase efficiency
      Robots: Every shape and size
    • Maintenance: Key for efficiency
      Shredders: Plastic in pieces
      Safety first for size reduction
      Granulators: The right fit
    • Video: Structural foam molding
      Structural foam molding: Flexibility for processors
    • Mold inventory: How many molds does a shop have?
      Molds: Innovation
      Mold changeover: Saving time and money
      How molds work
    • Labor: Apprenticeships may provide answer
      Internships: Solving the skills gap in-house
      College training, programs
      Lean Six Sigma: Transforming business operation
  • Events
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Ask the Expert
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
    • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Polymer Points Live - February 2021
      Polymer Points Live - January 2021
      Polymer Points Live - December 2020
      Polymer Points Live - October 2020
    • Plastics in Healthcare 2020
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Plastics in Healthcare
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
  • Resin Prices
    • All Resins
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Rankings
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Data Store
  • Directory
  • More+
    • Classifieds
    • Digital Edition
    • Newsletters
    • Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Sponsored By Mitsubishi
      Innovative new technology from Mitsubishi Engineering-Plastics Corporation helps reduce emission footprints
      Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Sponsored Content By Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Canon Virginia Inc. brings collaboration to the table
      Sponsored By CDS MACHINES
      Facing medical equipment shortages during COVID-19 outbreak?
      Sponsored Content By Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Transform your molding capabilities with the Canon Shuttle Mold System
    • Sponsored By Conexiom
      Use Sales Order Automation to free up time for CSRs to focus on customers, not manual entry
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
December 12, 2014 01:00 AM

New leader gives molder a spark

Roger Renstrom
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Print
    Roger Renstrom
    Miller

    A dynamic 32-year-old woman is energizing a Woodstock, Ill., injection molding business that her grandfather, now 80, founded as a tool shop.

    Patricia Miller learns quickly and has business acumen from a career in biopharmaceutical devices, but she ranks as a plastics industry neophyte.

    She returned home to McHenry County in mid-July to help with her grandfather's medical care and assume the reigns at Matrix IV Inc.

    Her priorities as CEO and an owner: “define the business's strength and culture, increase revenue, develop a customer-centric model and improve processes and efficiencies.”

    The aim is to transition Matrix “from a mom-and-pop to a true manufacturing player,” Miller said during an interview while on a visit to San Diego. The company is “debt-free, has cash in the bank and holds a line of credit.”

    Miller hired consulting firm McDonnell Co. LLC of Lake Forest, Ill., for three months to help Matrix refine the objectives.

    During AMT's Sept. 8-13 International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago, Miller met Fiona McLaren of Elk Grove Village, Ill., a videographer who documented a mold making mega-cell in Buffalo Grove, Ill. The video was shown during a May 15 Technology & Manufacturing Association program at Mazak Corp.'s Midwest technology center in Schaumburg, Ill.

    Graham

    McLaren suggested that Miller meet mega-cell creator Len Graham, then business leader of the mega-cell. Flextronics International Ltd. subsidiary Lynx Medpak Inc. acquired the mold making unit from Berry Plastics Group Inc., effective Nov. 1.

    Berry terminated Graham on Oct. 31, and he joined Matrix as chief operating officer on Nov. 3. Graham is facilitating Miller's efforts to rapidly make connections in the plastics industry, but he does not anticipate a chance to create another mega-cell.

    Currently, Matrix employs 20-25 including contract workers, recorded sales of $1.5 million for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31 and has 26 “well-maintained” hydraulic presses of 75-700 tons in a brick 1950s-era 80,000-square-foot facility. Capacity utilization is about 20 percent now, but Miller said, “three years ago, it was operating at a better capacity.”

    She has “torn down walls, painted and removed obsolete materials and machines” in moving ahead.

    Miller is forming synergistic relationships in design, mold making and manufacturing to meet what she perceives as the interests of prospective customers for a full range of services.

    In-house design engineers at the advanced design and manufacturing studio of M.C. Ginsberg Jewelers Inc. in Iowa City, Iowa, provide product development and prototyping services.

    Potential mold making suppliers include Geoff Luther at A-1 Tool Corp. in Melrose Park, Ill.; Francine Petrucci at BA Die Mold Inc. in Aurora, Ill.; Dave Long at Pro Mold & Die in Roselle, Ill.; and Donna Purcell at Prestige Mold Inc. in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

    Miller is structuring a proprietary production-sharing deal with a McHenry County manufacturer.

    With a friend's assistance, Miller transitioned the firm's data storage to Microsoft-hosted cloud computing services and discarded a mainframe from the 1980s.

    Six new fast-processor computers from Hewlett-Packard Co. of Palo Alto, Calif., have replaced older desktops.

    “In the past, most work at Matrix has been high touch beyond the molding phase,” she said, but that will change with the CEO's “obsession” to implement “leap-frog” technologies such as additive manufacturing and three-dimensional printing.

    “I plan to have a 3-D printer in-house and share it with other businesses in McHenry County,” she said.

    A system from E2 Software Oy of Espoo, Finland, will deal with quoting, cost accounting and tracking of raw materials and finished goods. Miller researched available software. Her inquiries yielded 38 quick responses and led to demonstrations of four systems and a final E2 presentation during which all employees participated.

    The Chicago office of consultancy IMSM Inc. is helping move Matrix toward ISO certification.

    While Matrix lacks a sales force, Miller uses a customer-relationship-management product from Salesforce Inc. of San Francisco en route to possibly adding sales talent.

    Matrix origins

    Raymond C. Wenk Sr., a tool and die maker, saw an entrepreneurial opportunity and founded Matrix in 1976, initially making molds. He retired in 2012.

    Wenk invented the plastic hose clamp, patented the automotive technology in the late 1970s and, as a molder, manufactured the glass-filled nylon parts for General Motors Corp. and others. That production continues.

    Wenk included the Roman numeral “IV” in the company name to represent his capabilities in engineering, tooling, designing and manufacturing.

    The business succeeded in making components for automotive, aerospace and consumer products, but Wenk sequentially experienced the downside of allowing a single customer to account for 80 percent of his business at any one time.

    In the 1980s, it was the buyout of an automotive customer. In the 1990s, a consumer business went bankrupt. And in the 2000s, a maker of consumer coffee pots and blenders took the work to Mexico.

    Volume at one point required Wenk to add capacity. He acquired an 80,000-square-foot building with a rail siding in Huntley, Ill., about 11 miles south of Woodstock. Currently, a tenant uses the space for assembly.

    At its peak in 2000, Matrix recorded annual sales of about $14.5 million, but that slid to $8 million and then to $3.98 million for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2013.

    Wenk educated his daughter, Dianna, on the technical side of polymer materials, and she serves now as process engineer for Matrix. Dianna Wenk is Miller's mother.

    Miller's background

    Miller, who grew up in nearby Crystal Lake, was allowed as a fifth grader to fly unaccompanied to visit a friend in Switzerland, whetting her appetite for foreign travel.

    At age 15, she designed Matrix's original website, now being replaced.

    Her Spanish studies in school over many years come in handy in communicating with some Matrix production workers.

    She graduated from the University of Iowa with bachelor degrees in marketing and journalism and was an intern in an entrepreneurship program. Currently, Miller is a member of the university's entrepreneurial alumni advisory board.

    She graduated from University College London with a master's degree in legal and political theory. While in London, she was an intern with Parliament and the British Labour Party headquarters working on policy and task development and helping interested parties establish democracies, mostly in African countries.

    Wanting to return to the U.S., Miller relocated to Honolulu as a political aide to Hawaii State Sen. Les S. Ihara Jr.

    She joined Eli Lilly & Co. in Honolulu in September 2007 in neuroscience sales and became a certified Six Sigma Black Belt. Subsequently, she was with Lilly in market research in Indianapolis and was certified in the discipline during a program at the University of Georgia.

    Miller marketed Lilly men's health technology globally and was involved in U.S. marketing of diabetes drugs for a Ridgefield, Conn.-based alliance of Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH. “I launched products and was a brand leader,” she said.

    From June 2012 to July 2014, she held marketing positions with human enzyme research firm Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. in San Diego. At one stage, Miller was in charge of a Halozyme group developing the design of a diabetes device, selecting resins and colors and sourcing manufacturers. Also, she was involved with development of a Halozyme oncology device for dealing with tumors.

    With intentions to continue climbing the plastics industry learning curve, Miller plans to attend the 2015 NPE show in Orlando, Fla., in March.

    Mold making industry veteran Graham said of Miller and Matrix, “People this dynamic are hard to find. She is … so full of fire and presents herself extremely well in customer visits. We mean business, are competitive, don't have overhead and want some non-clean room medical work in here.”

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    logo-pn-color
    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber & Plastics News
    • Urethanes Technology
    • Plastics News China
    • European Rubber Journal
    • Tire Business
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2021. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • What Keeps You Up At Night
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
        • Polymer Points Live
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • FYI Charts
        • Current FYI
      • LSR World
      • Multimedia
        • Videos
        • Galleries
        • Podcasts
      • NPE2021
      • K Show
      • Special Reports
        • CEO Issue
        • Best Places to Work
        • Processor of the Year
        • Rising Stars
        • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • Heavy Metal
      • One Good Resin
      • BRICS and Plastics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Plastics in Healthcare
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
      • Industry Events
      • Livestreams/Webinars
      • Ask the Expert
      • Polymer Points Live
      • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
      • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
      • Plastics in Healthcare Library
      • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Resin Prices
      • All Resins
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Rankings
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Data Store
    • Directory
    • More+
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified
      • Digital Edition
      • Newsletters
      • Sponsored Content
        • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Processor of the Year submissions