Fluorolite grows through market demand
Courtesy/Fluorolite Plastics
Greg Pink, CEO of Fluorolite Plastics in Framingham.
Light covers made by Fluorolite Plastics in Framingham can be found everywhere from school cafeterias to streets in major cities like Providence. The company, which was founded in 1977, manufactures and distributes replacement lens covers in the U.S. and around the world.
CEO Greg Pink spoke about streamlining the workforce, becoming certified women-owned, and how LED lighting has affected business.
How did the company start?
I actually started it with my father. He used to work for an electrical distributor. He was retired but wanted to keep working because he was a manufacturing rep. One of the lines he took on was replacement plastic company and at the time all we needed to do was run around to schools and hospitals and get orders. We’d send orders into a factory, and they'd ship directly back to the customers. A school would send the order back to the factory directly, and the factory sent it back to them, cutting us out.
We dropped that line, and we picked up another that at the time was requesting us to do cutting, molding and bending of plastic into all different shapes. We started doing a few little things in my father's basement. We started out storing stuff in his garage, it became a mini storage place. I would get sales and cut at night. Then I’d leave my father's house and go home at 10 or 11 at night. My mom said, "You need to move out," so we found a space in Saxonville.
My wife [Diane, current CFO] started the doing books and the financial stuff, and we realized we had to hire some people. My brother-in-law was in between jobs, so he helped me. That was 35 years ago, and he’s still here.
Then what happened?
We kind of grew and expanded from there. We went over to Holliston, to the New England Industrial Park, before we decided to move back to Framingham. At one point we had about 15 people working here, and we have about eight right now. We’ve streamlined things and made them more efficient. After 40 years, we have worked out a lot of the bugs and kinks, and we do a lot of business over the internet.
Most of our business when we first started was done through distributors. We used their salesmen to go into the schools and hospitals, look for replacement plastics, and we had sales people who would run around, pick them up, identify them and quote them.
But then the fax machine came along, and all you had to do was take a plastic lens, run a pen or pencil around it, and that gives is a footprint. That made it very easy to do replacement lenses from a long distance. We could do that before, but you’d have to mail in either the part or the sketch. Faxing it was just an amazing technology at the time for us. That helped us to grow and expand outside of New England.
Then of course, the internet came along and people could send us cell phone pictures and dimensions -- you can email things. We do a lot of business outside of New England. We just shipped stuff to Alaska. Texas and California are our biggest markets outside of New England.
Who do you sell to?
We can work with anyone who has a fluorescent light fixture. We can sell anybody from the White House to a local pizza shop. We make several products, including street light refractors, which are the things that look like acorns on the street lights. We sold the whole city of Providence over 1,000 of them, we have other things like clear, unbreakable tubes.
An exposed heart tube somewhere, especially in a cafeteria or food preparation area, is required by law to be covered. If the light gets broken by a mop handle, it stays self contained in the tube. They don't want the glass flying all around. All fluorescent tubes have to be covered in cafeteria or kitchen area.
Anybody is a potential customer. We have hundreds, or even thousands of different molds.
Do you do business abroad?
We’ve shipped out of the country, but it’s not our main focus. The internet allows us to get contacts from places like China and England -- all over the place. Sometimes freight costs can be an issue though.
When did you become certified women-owned?
Probably seven or eight years ago. It’s a whole process, my wife went through it. It’s quite a process, and I think it helps us get contracts. We sell to the federal government. You get opportunities to bid, and you get a leg up. I think it has helped.
It’s tough enough for small business to compete today, although we don't have a lot of competition. I think you can find other people in the internet, but once people find us, they stay with us.
How have changes in lighting innovation affected business for you?
A lot of people are switching to LEDs -- there are a lot of LED rebates going on right now. Rather than rip out whole light fixture and put in new LED, people are putting in LED tubes, which look just like fluorescent tubes. But LED can be much brighter, and if they leave the original plastic that came with fixture, it’s not always that pretty or nice looking, or you can see the little tiny LEDs that are tiny dots like a bright spot, and people don't like it. We are finding we’re replacing perfectly good plastic with a plastic specially designed for use with LED tubes. You can't see the LED, it diffuses light in a much softer, gentler way, and it’s much more pleasing to the eye. Every light fixture designed for LED has a designed plastic for LED. We are retrofitting for new LED plastic as well.
LED does give off ultraviolet light less than a fluorescent does. It will eventually discolor but not as fast.
There is still so much fluorescent lighting out there, so we’ve been very very busy lately and are even thinking of hiring somebody else. Knock on wood. We're thankful for the business that we get, and hopefully it’ll continue.
This interview was conducted and edited for content and clarity by Laura Finaldi, WBJ staff writer.
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