Kickstart: Making history with seating

Every company that's been in business for more than 130 years has some history. But a Michigan maker of metal, plastic and textile seating for buses, light rail and other mass transit — and formerly a maker of iconic school desks — has a link to history that ends up in textbooks.

American Seating Co., founded in 1886, announced plans to move from its existing manufacturing complex in Grand Rapids, Mich., to a larger, more efficient production site in the same city, our sister paper Crain's Grand Rapids Business reported.

"The move is part of American Seating's effort to bolster its transportation seating operation," CGRB wrote.

American Seating's focus these days is mass transit, but it got its start as a maker of school desks. It created the one-piece chair and desk combination used in schools since the early 1900s, adapting to use plastics and laminate late in the 20th century before selling that division. Its stadium division — sold off in 2017 — produced seating for Major League Baseball parks and arenas.

And in 1955 in Montgomery, Ala., it was an American Seating bench seat on a bus that Rosa Parks refused to give up.

To mark her protest, American Seating makes a commemorative seat dedicated to Rosa Parks that is used in transit systems nationwide.

A lot of people see their work not just as a skill or a craft, but a calling.

Count Justin McPhee among those.

McPhee, who has worked for Willernie, Minn.-based Mold Craft Inc. for 24 years and is now its vice president of engineering, won the American Mold Builders Association's Mold Maker of the Year earlier this month.

"It's why God put me here — to push forward manufacturing," he said when receiving the award May 11.

PN's Catherine Kavanaugh writes that McPhee promotes manufacturing to students and advocates for mold makers in Washington, D.C., while still overseeing the production of precision medical molds and enhancing a family-like work culture.

Sean Stabler, vice president of innovation for Sekisui Kydex in Bloomsburg, Pa., has received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Pennsylvania College of Technology in a special event earlier this year.

Stabler received an associate degree from the college in 2004 and a bachelor's degree in plastics and polymer engineering technology in 2006. He also has a master's degree from Drexel University.

He is active in Penn College's Alumni Tomorrow Makers program, serves on the college's plastics advisory committee and volunteers with children's STEM programs, including the Rube Goldberg Challenge at Bloomsburg Children's Museum.