Company: Providence Metallizing
Location: 51 Fairlawn Ave., Pawtucket
Type of business: Contract surface finishing
Owner: Richard Sugerman
Employees: 300
Annual sales: $15 – 20 million
Founded: 1951
Providence Metallizing’s 48-year history has been dedicated to making other companies’ products look good. Whether it’s a lipstick case or a light fixture in an automobile, the Pawtucket company is responsible for the finishing and electroplating of an abundance of goods. The company’s 250,000-square-foot manufacturing space on Fairlawn Avenue sparkles with gold, silver and a rainbow of other colors applied to products made by local companies like A.T. Cross and national giants like IBM and General Electric.
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The company posts between $15-20 million a year in revenue contracting its expertise out to manufacturers throughout North America. Providence Metallizing has become a leader in the field by making innovations in the finishing process, something they’ve understood is vital to stay competitive.
“The growth markets for us are constantly changing,” said Richard Sugerman, the company’s president. “The companies that we were heavily involved with several years ago have been hit hard with import competition. We have had to find new areas to target.”
Those areas include, for instance, the cosmetic industry and electronics field. The latter industry is not so much concerned about making its products and parts look good, but making them work.
“It’s not just about decorative benefits, but it’s functionality,” he said. For example, a company may want a shiny finish for reflective purposes, like the innards of a police siren, or have a product chrome plated to protect it from the elements so as not to corrode.
When Sugerman’s father Nathaniel Sugerman founded the company in 1951 it was with the intent of serving the then booming jewelry industry in Rhode Island. In fact, Nathaniel Sugerman, who died in 1991, started out in business with his own jewelry manufacturing company called Beatrix Jewelry.
“He decided, though, to go into the finishing end of the business. He was a very technically oriented man, who would rather be involved in the technical side than design,” said his son.
The elder Sugerman ran both Providence Metallizing, which originally was located at Reservoir Avenue and then at Charles Street in Providence, and the jewelry company, but sold Beatrix after encountering conflicts with doing finishing work for companies that were his competitors on the manufacturing side.
Beatrix went through several name changes before going out of business 10 years ago.
Richard Sugerman, 37, has seen the company evolve since he began working for it as a young man, before he took over three years ago. Recognizing that his customers are ever changing was the most important lesson he learned over the years.
“We do a lot of research and development here so we get the right finishing techniques for a market that we see is emerging. We have to stay ahead. This is a knowledge business so it is important to sell expertise that people can utilize as soon as possible,” Sugerman said.
For example, the company is now developing a cutting-edge plastic plating process. Along with relying on its own employees’ ingenuity in development, all tooling and fixtures for machinery are made in-house.
Just as important as discovering new fields to applying its techniques is finding companies to pay them to do it. The bulk of the company’s marketing comes in the six to eight trade shows they exhibit in and the dozens more that they simply attend to make contacts. Sugerman said the trade shows run the gamut, from trophy manufacturers to lamp part shows.
The sales and marketing people for Providence Metallizing come armed with kits showing what the company is capable of doing. From its offering of metals like gold, silver copper to paints, the company has hundreds of colors and varying shades in its arsenal.
“We pride ourselves in having the greatest number of options in the industry. It’s a great asset for us in finding and keeping new business,” he said.
The greatest asset though is the company’s work force, he quickly added.
“We have a great team. It’s like a family and that isn’t an accident. We look to hire family members of current employees, which adds to the environment here,” he said.
Sugerman said that attitude has a lot to do with its safety initiatives at the plant. The company has a safety committee, whose members roam the plant every shift looking for potential hazards. The result is that the company is two months away from having two straight years of not having an employee miss a day of work due to a work-related injury.
The achievement was recently recognized with a proclamation from Gov. Lincoln Almond.
“What we have done is a great testament that a fast moving company like ours can be a safe one,” Sugerman said.
Sugerman said the company has been very active in environmental issues as well, which earned them the Narragansett Bay Commission Award for Perfect Compliance two years in a row.
“We believe you can be successful in business and still care for your employees and your community. We have been doing that for many years and plan to continue to do so,” Sugerman added.
