Core Technology moves from the classroom to the boardroom

Geoff Foster needed a break. In spring 2001, he was in the last semester of his MBA studies at Wake Forest University. The program, he admits, was rigorous. With two little kids at home, he saw an elective course on entrepreneurship and thought it was the breather he needed.

Foster submitted an abstract on injection molding, which he had plenty of experience with during his work at several companies, including Becton, Dickinson and Co. and Tyco Electronics. Foster's professor, Jack Fenner, OK'd everyone's submission but asked to see Foster after class.

"My stomach hit the floor. I was like, 'Dammit.' I was just trying to fly under the radar.

"He said, 'I think you've got something.'

"I said, 'What do you mean, an A?'

"He said, 'No, it's bigger than that.'

"I really wasn't that interested in the conversation. I was like, 'OK, I just want an A.'"

But Fenner impressed upon Foster there were few minority-owned injection molders. Additionally, his would-be competitors that were minority-owned were focused on the Big Three automakers. This would open the growing Southern automotive market to Foster as well as sectors like medical, appliance and others.

"My paper was focused on automotive and medical because there are no minorities in the clean room space," Foster said.

However, Foster was short the few million dollars he believed he would need to start his business. So, he approached an established injection molder and launched a partnership where Foster owned 51 percent of the operation. The pairing worked for five years, but Foster and the partner dissolved their arrangement at the end of 2012, allowing Foster to go out on his own with Core Technology Molding Corp.

"The partner was a commodity molder. My current customers are high-tolerance, no-nonsense kind of companies. We're doing chicken pox and shingles stuff in our clean room. It's just a different type of customer base we have," Foster said.

Core Technology generates sales of less than $10 million per ​ year, Foster said. But the company experienced 80 percent year-over-year growth last year thanks, in part, to disparate customers from major brands like BMW, Merck & Co., Husqvarna Group, Newell Brands Inc., Whirlpool Corp. and KontrolFreek LLC.

The appliance market accounts for the largest portion of Core's current business including making dishwasher parts for Whirlpool. Foster's team also manufacturers parts for the interior, trunk and steering columns for the BMW X3, X4 and X5. "They want us to do more, too," he said.

Manufacturing for gaming has increased with work already on the books for the PS4, Xbox and a newly signed deal for a control stick for Nintendo. "That's a growing market," Foster said.

Core Technology is on the move, too. Next year, the company, based in High Point, N.C., is heading 10 miles down the road to the campus of North Carolina A&T, a historically black college in Greensboro. At its new location, Core will increase its manufacturing footprint from 19,000 square feet to 30,000 to 40,000 square feet. What's more, the building, which has no other tenant, is 70,000 square feet if Core needs to eventually occupy the entire space.

Core broke ground on its new site last month with executives from Altria, BMW, Draxlmaier, Husqvarna, KontrolFreek and Merck all attending.

Foster's biggest coup may not be the expanded manufacturing footprint. Foster is an adjunct professor at North Carolina A&T, where he teaches plastics engineering. So the move cements his already established pipeline of young workers for his 25-person operation at Core Technology.

Four of his five managers are graduates of NCA&T.

"We're going to be [located] next to the nanoscience and nanoengineering building. We're going to get really smart. There are companies dying because they can't find talent. A lot of my guys will start out on the floor and maybe move to supply chain manager. We'll keep filling the pipeline," he said.

Foster is also excited because North Carolina's governor recently approved plastics engineering as an official concentration under applied engineering at the school. "In two years, I hope it will be a major," he said.

He believes this program that he established will expose more minorities to the plastics industry. Most minorities attend college in the Southeast, he said, away from the universities with established plastics programs in the East and Midwest.

With a growing company and a new headquarters to open, what keeps this 50-year-old CEO and president up at night?

"At one time, being 100 percent automotive was concerning. Tyco was my first customer. I used to lose sleep over that. The lesson learned was I need to diversify my portfolio. We weren't diversified. The piece that makes me nervous now is growing too fast. It's got to be controlled growth. Let's not get to $25 million next year. We could do it, but we've got to be able to sustain it."