One of the perks of coordinating PN's Processor of the Year award is the opportunity to learn in great detail about some of the best plastics companies in North America.
We had three outstanding finalists for the 2024 award, and we revealed the winner — Redline Plastics LLC — on March 12 at our Executive Forum in La Jolla, Calif.
Redline's roots date back to 1922 as Dow Canvas, which specialized in tents, awnings, powersports covers and accessories. The big shift to plastics — and the rebranding as Redline Plastics — came in 2018.
Redline's trophy case is overflowing these days, which is amazing considering the company is only seven years old. The company won the 2022 PN Excellence Award for Employee Relations and the 2023 PN Excellence Award winner for Industry and Public Service. Redline has also been a PN Best Place to Work for four years in a row.
Redline is also a three-time finalist for Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year.
Redline is best known for its company culture. Its "cultural behaviors" are featured everywhere, including in big letters on the lobby wall. Examples include "you have one mouth but two ears" and "recognizing awesome."
Just inside the front door, there's a cardboard donkey with a memorable message: "Don't be a jackass." Of course, I took a selfie with that one.
But while the "ninja" culture is in the forefront, Redline actually earned high marks in all of the PN Processor of the Year criteria: financial performance, quality, customer relations, employee relations, environmental performance, industry/public service and technological innovation.
I picked the finalists back in November 2024, after combing through all the submissions, contacting their customers and doing background checks on all of the companies. Health issues prevented me from visiting the finalists this year, but fortunately Joe Pryweller, our senior director of conference and event content, volunteered to go in my place.
The site visits play a big part in picking the award winner, and I was lucky to have the chance to get Joe's opinion on all three companies. Joe coordinated our Processor of the Year award several decades ago when he was a PN senior reporter.
Best of all, Joe and I agreed that all three finalists this year were very strong contenders.
This year, the other finalists received PN Excellence Awards, recognizing outstanding achievement in specific Processor of the Year criteria. Intek Plastics LLC, a Hastings, Minn.-based profile extruder, injection molder and rapid prototyper, won the PN Excellence Award for Employee Relations. Plastic Molding Manufacturing Co., an injection molder of highly technical products based in Hudson, Mass., won the PN Excellence Award for Customer Relations.
Congratulations for all three, as well as to Tessy Plastics Corp., a Skaneateles, N.Y.-based injection molder and contract manufacturer, which won our Sustained Excellence Award. The Sustained Excellence Award is offered exclusively to previous Processor of the Year winners, which Tessy won in 2000.
Adding Tessy to the list of Sustained Excellence winners gives Roland Beck and his team well-deserved recognition, as well as adding to the prestige of our award.
Congratulations to all four companies. We'll open up nominations for the 2025 awards in August.
Don Loepp is editor of Plastics News and author of the Plastics Blog. Follow him on X @donloepp.