PN names five finalists for 2021 Processor of the Year award

Plastics News has named five finalists for the 2021 Processor of the Year award: Comar LLC, MMI Engineered Solutions Inc., Proto Labs Inc., PTI Engineered Plastics Inc. and Teel Plastics LLC.

Three of the companies — Comar, MMI and PTI — are repeat finalists.

All were considered essential businesses and stayed open through the pandemic. In fact, all five companies played important roles in battling COVID-19, making personal protective equipment and important medical products.

All five companies are injection molders but also have significant additional plastics operations. Comar and MMI also do blow molding. Both MMI and PTI have large tooling operations. Teel is well known for its custom extrusion business; injection molding is a newer area of specialization.

Proto Labs, which in official messaging is known as Protolabs, started as an injection molder, but it is now known as a prototyping and digital manufacturing specialist, with mold making and 3D printing operations.

Processor of the Year candidates are judged on seven criteria: financial performance, quality, customer relations, employee relations, environmental performance, industry/public service and technological innovation.

Plastics News editors will visit all the finalists in person. All five finalists will be honored at the 2022 Executive Forum, scheduled for March 21-23 in Naples, Fla.

The winner will be profiled in the April 4 print edition of PN. The 2021 PN Excellence Award winners will be profiled in the April 11 issue.

The 2020 winner was Plastek Industries Inc., a. packaging molding specialist and mold maker based in Erie, Pa.

Here's a description of each finalist, in alphabetical order:

Comar was founded in 1949, originally as a glass manufacturer. From the beginning, it had a stake in the health care sector, which is its largest market today. The company was founded by current CEO Michael Ruggieri's grandfather.

Comar sold the glass business in 2006 to focus on plastics.

In its submission, Comar said significant investments in people and manufacturing assets have the business "poised for an exceptional future."

On the COVID front, Comar is a leading supplier of custom rigid packaging for wet wipes, a product that was in heavy demand in 2020 and 2021. It makes medical products that have been in high demand as well.

The company has 11 manufacturing facilities and more than 1,100 employees, all in North America. The most recent expansion came via acquisition: On Dec. 28, Comar announced that it has purchased Omega Packaging, a La Mirada, Calif.-based injection and blow molder that serves the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, sports nutrition and skin care markets.

Prior to that deal, the company has been expanding organically. In 2021, it was busy building new plants in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., and Vineland, N.J., plus it moved into a larger facility in West Bend, Wis.

Comar, which is based in Voorhees, N.J., was a Processor of the Year finalist in 2020. The company also won the 2020 PN Excellence Award for industry and public service.

Saline, Mich.-based MMI Engineered Solutions was a finalist for the Processor of the Year trophy in 2019 and 2020 and is back for a third time in 2021.

In its 2021 submission, the company highlighted creative ways it is dealing with labor shortages and changing regulations, including government rules related to COVID-19. MMI has dealt with the changing market by investing in new equipment, training and quality resources.

"The challenges of 2021 continue to be significant, but as we have seen in the past our employees have risen to meet [these] challenges head on," MMI officials wrote. "During 2021, we have gained new business, grown as a company and remained focused on our customers, our employees and our future."

To address a skills shortage in the labor market, MMI contracted with Guiness Technologies — a training firm headed by two professors from Ferris State University's Plastics Engineering Technology program — to provide more than 30 new employees with injection molding basic training.

The company does injection molding and blow molding of automotive parts in plants in Saline and Warren, Mich., and in Monterrey, Mexico. MMI also designs and makes molds in-house.

Owner, President and CEO Doug Callahan considers MMI's in-house toolmaking to be a competitive advantage, since it allows the company to rapidly respond to customer needs.

Protolabs, based in Maple Plain, Minn., is a first-time Processor of the Year finalist and still a relatively young company.

The firm was founded as Protomold Co. Inc. in 1999 and was an early adopter of digital manufacturing technology. Founder Larry Lukis believed that the time needed to manufacture injection molded parts could be radically reduced with the integration of complex software to automate the process.

Protolabs is the only publicly traded Processor of the Year finalist this year. It held an initial public offering in 2012.

Today, Protolabs offers 16 manufacturing processes, which fall under four main service offerings: 3D printing, injection molding, sheet metal fabrication and computer numerically controlled machining. Protolabs makes more than 5 million parts per month and operates a dozen facilities across five countries.

Protolabs' speed-to-market capabilities were vital during the pandemic, as it was able to quickly prototype and help commercialize COVID-related products.

"Protolabs also had an advantage during the pandemic by building up a robust and diverse supply chain over the last 20 years," the company wrote in its submission. "We are able to source our raw materials, resins and metals while not being limited to a single point of supply chain failure. With that, our inventory levels did not cause any disruption at the height of the pandemic."

In 2021, the company promoted Rob Bodor to the CEO role, replacing longtime CEO Vicki Holt, who retired. Bodor joined Protolabs in 2012 and was most recently vice president and general manager for the Americas.

Macomb, Mich.-based PTI Engineered Plastics was a finalist for the 2019 Processor of the Year award, and it is back as a finalist for the 2021 award.

When Mark Rathbone founded the company in 1984, PTI Engineered Plastics operated under the name of Proto-Tech Industries and focused on functional prototype molds and injection molded samples.

The current name came in 1987, to reflect how the company had become a turnkey manufacturing operation. A major change came in 2010 when PTI expanded its design capabilities with the launch of an in-house design studio that specializes in product innovation and development.

Today, PTI is a custom injection molder serving a diverse customer base, including medical, automotive, defense/aerospace and commercial/consumer products companies. The company specializes in low-volume complex parts.

The company is well known in the Macomb County area, north of Detroit, for being active in the community. As an example, PTI is a regular participant in Manufacturing Day, a nationwide initiative designed to increase awareness about the vital role manufacturing plays in the economy. Each year, the company hosts high school students, giving them an overview in design, tooling, manufacturing and secondary services.

Rathbone, who is the company's CEO, said PTI's growth has brought both challenges and rewards.

"I can proudly say that I still have many employees that have been with me for 30 or more years. I'm also honored to say that about some of my customers," he wrote in the company's submission. "In any business, a relationship with your employees and customers is the key to success; without those, you just have an empty building."

In 2021, Teel Plastics President and Chief Commercial Officer Tom Thompson was tasked with tremendous responsibility: to rapidly expand capacity to make swab stick handles for COVID-19 diagnostic test kits.

"Teel's longtime customer, Puritan Medical Products of Guilford, Maine, was asked in March 2020 by Vice President Mike Pence's office to increase test kit production. In response, Teel adjusted its schedules and priorities to increase production of the swab stick handles for the flocked swabs used in Puritan's test kits," Teel said in its submission.

"Teel shortly began running them 24/7 and has produced approximately over 1.5 billion swabs sticks in the last 19-20 months."

Teel substantially expanded swab capacity thanks to a U.S. Department of Defense contract awarded in October 2020, which the company used to buy nine new Arburg injection molding machines and two extruders focused on swab production. Teel added 50 additional employees.

With a tip of the hat to Willy Wonka, Teel started a "Golden Ticket" program in 2021 that awards employees who refer a new hire to the company with a ticket that's redeemable for cash or an extra full week of vacation.

Teel was established as Insemikit Co., a specialty manufacturer and distributor of agricultural implements and tools for the veterinary and the emerging livestock artificial insemination industry, in 1951.

In 2020, Teel was acquired by MPE Partners, a private equity firm, and became an LLC.

While Baraboo, Wis.-based Teel Plastics has not been a Processor of the Year finalist, the company did win the PN Excellence Award for industry and public service in 2019.