Kickstart: Like mother, like daughter, at one medical molder

In more than 20 years at Plastics News, I've run across a lot of companies with a lot of interesting founding stories. But I don't think I've come across one like Plastiques Moore Inc. before. Plastiques Moore, recently purchased by Exo-s Inc., is an injection molder and toolmaker founded by a mother and daughter team.

While I've seen my share of firms created by a husband and wife, or by a woman working either solo or with partners, a mother and daughter team stands out.

In 1991, Marie-Claude Guillemette and her mother, Judith Moore, wanted to get into business and opted to create an injection molding company. Plastiques Moore produced its first part on Jan. 7, 1991.

The company began at a business incubator in Saint Damien, Quebec, with three employees and two presses. It did well enough that it expanded in 1994 and now has more than 100 workers at sites in Canada and Mexico.

Judith Moore retired in 1999 and Marie-Claude Guillemette continued running the company, adding more capabilities as it expanded.

When molder Exo-s announced Feb. 2 it would buy Plastiques Moore, the company had mold making, design and molding of high-precision medical parts. It says it is the only injection molding firm in Quebec with three ISO Class 8 clean rooms for medical molding.

Some plastics companies are working to keep aid flowing to areas of Kentucky hit by tornados in December.

Radienz Living, a housewares company based in Melville, N.Y., and Primex Plastics Corp. of Richmond, Ind., have both been involved in projects to support residents impacted by the Dec. 11 storms.

Radienz donated 60 pallets of wellness items such as disinfectant wipes, detergent, fabric softener and baby wipes.

"Our plant had many of the supplies that we knew Kentuckians needed after the devastation, so it was an easy decision to step in to help those that were hit hard by the tornadoes," Darin Lundberg, director of operations at the Radienz plant in Pittston, Pa., said in a news release.

Radienz delivered a truckload of the items in Mayfield Jan. 28, timing the delivery to ensure supplies after the first wave of assistance had passed.

Primex, meanwhile, coordinated delivery of items collecting at its plant and from neighboring businesses, including B&F Plastics in Richmond. The group's four semitrailer loads — plus Christmas toys — arrived in the Mayfield area just before Christmas.

"We wanted that community to know they had friends to the north," Doug Borgsdorf, a business unit director, told the economic development website Home In Wayne.

Poly Styrene is gaining some respect.

Not the plastic material, but the musician who picked her stage name from a listing in a telephone directory. She liked that the name made her sound "kind of plastic."

In 2021, her former home in the United Kingdom had a blue historical marker added to it. And this year, Poly Styrene — real name Marianne Elliott-Said — is the subject of a documentary movie directed by her daughter, Celeste Bell, and Paul Sng.

Poly Styrene died in 2011, long after her brief career as the singer for punk rock band, the X-Ray Spex, had faded. But in recent years, her music and her status as the first woman of color in the U.K. to front a rock band have been getting renewed attention.

The documentary Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché, just was released for rent or purchase on streaming services and the New York Times named the documentary as a NYT Critics Pick.

You can see the trailer here.