Kickstart: Lessons from an all-pro salesperson

If you were looking for a mentor to learn the ropes of selling plastics products, Ed Rich would be a great choice.

I worked with Ed for more than 26 years. We first met at Plastics News, where he sold classified ads. Later he became sales director for PN's sister brand Urethanes Technology International and its trade shows.

Ed was always a great resource when I had questions, especially about recyclers and brokers. He had a lot of plastics experience from before he came to PN, too, including stints selling plastics film products for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Mobil Chemical Co.

When he retired a year ago, Ed decided to write a book. It's already on the market: Close Every Sales Call: A Professionals Guide to Selling and Sales Management. It's a good read, and there are a lot of stories from his plastics past, too.

I've never been much of a salesman. I'm the guy who would bring cases of candy bars and Girl Scout cookies to work for my daughters, and then end up buying most of them myself.

But after reading Ed's book, I felt like I could give sales another try. If Ed can sell premium plastic wrap to butchers, then I should be able to sell Thin Mints, right?

Tessy Plastics Corp. is one of the biggest names in injection molding, with 10 plants and more than 1,500 employees. This week the company marks a big milestone: 50 years in business.

Henry Beck and two partners — Al Bauerschmidt and Dieter Frick — started the company on March 23, 1973, in a 16,000-square-foot building in Elbridge, N.Y.

The name, Tessy, was after Bauerschmidt's daughter.

Today the company is owned by the Beck family and headed by President Roland Beck. Tessy Plastics was our Processor of the Year in 2000 — that was just the fifth year of the award. Our feature, written by Joe Pryweller, is worth a read.

Tessy Plastics is known for precision molding of a variety of medical and consumer products. A big product for the company the year it was named Processor of the Year was the Hefty One-Zip Slider Bag. Happy anniversary to Tessy Plastics!

The New York Times had a story last week about what's probably the most famous plastic fish since Big Mouth Billy Bass. (I know, I've watched far too many late night TV commercials.)

In August 2020, a fisherman in Greece took a photo on the beach of what looked like a rare goblin shark. The photo, and his story, ended up inspiring a report last year in the academic journal Mediterranean Marine Science.

Unfortunately, this fish story looks like a tall tale. As the photo was shared widely, researchers noticed that it looked a lot like a plastic model shark sold by an Italian toy company.

Good thing the fisherman did not take a photo of Aquaman or the Little Mermaid.