Tucked away in the green fields and gentle farmlands of South County is something you would never expect – a manufacturing plant, Hope Valley Industries, which is doing so well making top-quality floor mats for motor vehicles that the owners are looking to expand and perhaps double the number of employees.
“We’re one of Rhode Island’s best-kept secrets,” said Anthony Ventrone, controller for the North Kingstown company located on Exeter Road.
The company employs approximately 80 people and manufactures millions of mats every year for automobiles around the world, shipping throughout the United States and to Canada, Mexico, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. “It’s funny, nobody even knows we’re here,” said Thomas A. Melucci, president and CEO of Hope Valley Industries. “We don’t make a lot of noise.”
The modern, one-story building looks more like a sprawling home than a factory, but it is where Hope Valley designs and manufactures all-weather floor mats made of what company officials call “elastic plastic.” The plastic is as durable and flexible as rubber but easier to work with and 100-percent recyclable, so used mats can be returned to the factory and Hope Valley will recycle them.
The elastic plastic comes in the form of pellets, no bigger than peppercorns, that are melted at high temperatures and injected into molds that shape the mats. The molds, also made at the plant, vary to conform to the design of the car that the mat is being made for. Hope Valley makes more than 500 varieties of mats for General Motors alone, and for such automakers as Volkswagen, Honda, Saturn, Audi and Jaguar. You won’t find these mats in stores. A “Tier 1 supplier,” Hope Valley sells only through car dealers, Melucci said, so the mats come installed in each new car or can be purchased as special accessories.
Company officials are excited because they recently snared a contract to make custom floor mats for Mercedes-Benz USA and Canada; approximately 2 million mats a year. And, after a recent visit to Germany, they are hopeful that they can capture the European contract for Mercedes and perhaps for other Germany-based car companies as well. “We have a strong expectation of possibly being an international supplier,” Melucci said. “We’ve got a great product, and we don’t have a lot of competition in this area.”
Like all successful manufacturers, Hope Valley has adapted to its market with ingenuity. For instance, when a carmaker wanted mats bigger than company machines would allow, the machines were retooled to fit the product, Melucci said. The plant also has developed a process to reuse molds, “so our investment in molds is minimal,” he explained. “It’s a much cleaner and more efficient way” of preparing molds.
Located on a 10-acre site with nothing but fields around it, the Hope Valley building is perfectly situated to expand. The company now has three state-of-the-art, mold-making machines.
“We’re planning on having a dozen more machines, at least,” said Craig C. Melucci, Thomas’ son and vice president of Hope Valley. The number of workers “could double [to 160] in a couple of years,” his father noted.
Much may depend on assistance from the state. Representatives of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation were scheduled to visit the plant last week. “We’re looking for investment help,” the elder Melucci said. The company is considering building overseas, “but I’d like to stay here,” he said. “We have good neighbors, and [North Kingstown] is a good town.”
Thomas Melucci, a Lincoln resident, was in the textile-manufacturing business for most of his life, owning and operating what he called “a rather large factory” in Fall River that employed 400 people and was one of the last domestic suppliers of corduroy. Competition from overseas closed it. “It cost me more to dye the cloth,” Melucci said, “than to buy the cloth already dyed from China.”
In 2002, he and an investment partner, Nortek Inc. CEO Richard Bready of Providence, acquired Hope Valley Industries. “This business came along, and I always liked cars and my partner always liked cars, so we bought the company out of bankruptcy and invested a lot of money in it,” Melucci said. Asked how much was invested, he replied, “in the millions.” •
