Sires turns boring into profits

Crestview, Fla. — Bob Sires likes to invest in boring businesses. Vitamins, plastics, you name it.

“A lot of the flash-in-the-pan stuff I don't understand, so it kind of scares me a little bit. Boring stuff works,” Sires said, pointing to the strong cash flow of the $1 billion U.S. cable tie market.

Boring, maybe. Profitable, definitely.

The story of Bay State Cable Ties LLC changed dramatically when Sires relocated it to Florida 11 years ago when sales were $1 million. “We were not a manufacturer. We just purchased product and resold it,” the CEO and founder said.

Now, manufacturing has sparked annual double-digit growth with sales pushing $25 million. Employment has reached 110. Sires says $50 million in sales is well within reach in five years. Why?

“The only thing that stops us from growing is the number of machines we have,” Sires said. In fact, once a new mold hits Bay State's dock in Crestview, it's already sold out, running 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

With 14 injection molding machines on the shop floor, Sires and his team plan to add two or three more cells each year for the next four to five years.

A brand-spanking-new warehouse is open for business as of September at the Crestview site in the panhandle in Florida. Once inventory is completely moved into that 20,000-square-foot home, Bay State will have the room it needs to add the machines Sires envisions on the manufacturing floor.

In 2014, Bay State manufactured 1.8 billion cable ties, making them for customers as big as 3M and Fastenal in industries as diverse as HVAC to electronics in lengths from four inches to 48 inches.

“People just don't realize how many cable ties we use. It's like shoelaces. They're just used everywhere. That's the benefit of this business for us,” said Sires whose company does 85 percent of its business in the U.S. market with the balance split between Canada and Mexico.

Bay State has been innovative, too. Most recently, it launched Frosty Ties (also known as Extreme Ties) for applications in extreme cold and heat through a partnership with DuPont Co., its nylon resin supplier.

Above all, Sires is an entrepreneur. His investments in plastics include Technology Plastics LLC in Terryville, Conn., a $5 million custom injection molder. He backs a vitamin business that has him traveling to Russia monthly and he recently launched a website (LockerRoomTalk.com) devoted to aid high school athletes and their parents during the college recruitment cycle. Other plastics investments are on the horizon as well.

When he looks at his various businesses, Sires says the economy concerns him.

“You look at the stock market and everybody says it's doing well. And unemployment is going down. But you talk to anybody — I don't care if it's someone making $10 million a year or someone making $10 an hour — and they're all concerned about our economy and the leadership in this country. That's what keeps me up at night.

“If you asked me that a couple years ago, I would have had a different answer. It was China. China kept me up. China doesn't keep me up now. I'm not worried about China. We beat China,” Sires said.