Supplier No. 10 ePlastics | Best Places to Work 2025

Founded in 1914, ePlastics of San Diego is a full-service plastics distributor and fabrication company with customers throughout the United States and around the world.

The company originally was known as the Rench Co. and sold plastic numbers and letters from cellulose plastic as well as white plastic numbers used for waiting in line at the grocery store.

"You surely must ask, 'Plastics in 1914? Really?' Yes," the company says on its website.

The Ridout family purchased and renamed the company to Ridout Plastics in the 1950s. Seymour Rabin, a grocer, purchased it in 1967, and his son, Elliott Rabin, became the company's president in 1990. The company rebranded to ePlastics in 2015 as it had expanded into new territories.

ePlastics' 40,000-square-foot facility in San Diego "provides the backbone" for its online presence with a production center filled with computer numerically controlled sawing, drilling, laser cutting and routing of large-volume orders. Its showroom consists of a 3,500-square-foot store and experience for hobbyists, DIY homeowners and small-business owners alike. It stocks sheets, rods, tubes and shapes of plexiglass and Lucite acrylic as well as a wide variety of engineering plastics, including polyetheretherketone (PEEK), Ultem, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), nylon, Delrin acetal, ABS, Lexan- or Hygard-brand polycarbonate in bullet-resistant panels, and Micarta phenolic.

"We do plastic fabrication and machining specifically to customers' exact customization. We work from pencil drawings to blueprints, producing the desired components separately or the complete unit ready for shipment. … ePlastics has invested in state-of-the-art equipment for exacting tolerance control in today's zero-defect environment. From handcrafted fabrication to full production thermoforming and molding, we do it all and have been fabricating since 1945," the company says on its website.

As for its team and culture, ePlastics has been named to the Best Plastics to Work list every year since 2016.

What's the secret?

The company lists on its Careers webpage a multitude of reasons to work for ePlastics: team mentality and talent development, room for growth, unique work environment, excellent benefits and owning one's success.

"We want you to be the best you can be. Our knowledgeable staff and leadership team is here to help you grow. We offer great resources for industry learning and skill development.

"Our company is expanding. This affords us the ability to promote from within and help associates develop their careers.

"ePlastics is a one-of-a-kind complete plastic manufacturing and supply store for businesses of any size. New and exciting projects flow through our distribution and production departments every day," the company says on its website.

On-site activities to keep the team engaged include Halloween costume contests, ugly Christmas sweaters and holiday party, and catered lunches.

The ePlastics office/showroom has a wall of fame, where framed certificates are hung representing each employee and their number of years with the company. These frames are updated annually on employee hire anniversary dates.

Family-friendly and work-life balance benefits include families being invited to workplace celebrations, schedule flexibility to attend children's school events, and limited checking of emails and voicemails outside of work hours.

"We really take pride in empowering our employees to make decisions," the company said, "and maintain a high degree of autonomy and control in their work."