Laddawn hiring at newly expanded facility
Owen Richardson, vice president of sales and marketing at Laddawn.
Laddawn, a packaging maker headquartered in Devens, prides itself on its giving nature. The company, which has 304 total employees in five different states, participates in several charitable events every year, and manufactures entirely with renewable energy.
Owen Richardson, Laddawn’s vice president of sales and marketing, spoke about hiring, the company’s new Devens facility, and integrating technology into business-to-business industries.
Tell me about Laddawn. When was it founded, and what do you make?
Laddawn was founded in 1976. For over 40 years, we’ve provided packaging products for commercial consumers (think manufacturers and packagers). Through a process called blown film extrusion, we manufacture about 1,600 different stock and unlimited custom polyethylene bags, film and tubing in 5 production and warehouse facilities, including our largest right here in Sterling, Massachusetts. We have identical manufacturing & warehousing capabilities in Atlanta, GA, Dallas, TX, Sparks, NV and Manchester, IA. We also source nearly 800 stock and a variety of custom items from overseas and domestic suppliers. Over half our orders come to us through Laddawn.com. We’ve created a powerful online marketplace for America’s packaging distributors.
What markets do you serve?
Because we only sell to distributors our lens on the end user is limited. For Laddawn, it’s all about making our distributors experiences easier, better, even fun. I can tell you that our distributors sell to end users in a variety of user segments including industrial, manufacturing, food and health care classes of trade.
What was the idea behind your recent Devens expansion?
Our desire has always been to create highly collaborative workspaces and to facilitate people’s desire to simply get up and move around. It is also very important that people here feel at home at work. We’ve had an open working environment throughout our Devens headquarters including a number of well thought out and comfortable places to work together. In our original space, you’ll find conference rooms, of course, but also high top tables, couches and chairs and a glassed-door garage for larger group work. Light is free to fill the workspace as there are no office walls to block the sun. In the new addition, you’ll find a greater number of those collaborative spaces.
The new addition also provides a VDI (virtual desktop) environment. Here, employees can truly work anywhere. Come into Devens and you’ll see people working on treadmill, balance ball and stand up workstations. You can log on in one place and move to another to accommodate your needs for collaboration, space or privacy. On a nice day, you can even work out on our rooftop deck.
To accommodate people’s desire for fresh air and exercise, you’ll find company bicycles to take advantage of the many Devens walking and bike paths, a ping pong table and a climbing wall. Also, employees in Devens enjoy free memberships to a fitness club right across the street.
How do you ensure quality in your manufacturing processes?
Laddawn has been ISO Registered since 1996. At the core of the ISO system is an engine for continuous improvement. Here, best practices are documented and quality issues are tracked to root causes. Problem resolutions are identified and implemented, internal audits assess their value and management conducts follow up reviews. Our Nevada and Iowa facilities are HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) compliant.
What positions are you currently hiring for?
You’ll find a mix of professional positions at our corporate office Devens. We’ll continue to fill important roles in Software Development, Product & Brand Management, Purchasing, Finance and a number of Customer Service positions. At our facilities in Sterling, Atlanta, Dallas, Sparks and Manchester, you’ll find a number of positions in warehousing and manufacturing.
What is in the future for Laddawn?
At home, as consumers, we use innovative technologies to make our lives easier. I buy a lot of things though Amazon. I use OpenTable to Book a reservation and I might Uber there and back. I’ll use Waze to find my way around. But at work, it’s different. In most [business-to-business] industries, the way we do business has changed very little in more than a generation.
For companies in our space to make their way forward, they must bring those things we’ve come to expect at home to the [business-to-business] marketplace. Laddawn has conducted business online for 15 years. Today, over half of our orders will come through Laddawn.com and another 25 percent will come via EDI/xml. That leaves just 25 percent of business through traditional service inroads. At Laddawn.com people enter as little or as much as important to them to see the universe of product options. Here, the list of product categories and options – made by Laddawn or sourced – is growing. Customers can then bundle those items, save them, build multiple carts at once, share them from the site directly (branded and marked up) and ship them directly from Laddawn to their customers.
This month, we launched a new tool for the design of printed packaging. Here, in a completely intuitive, visual editor, customers can build their package, upload artwork, manipulate graphics with a WYSIWYG tool bar and get pricing and lead times in minutes. It’s a wonderful example of where our business is going: more product options through a model service experience.
Anything else you would like to share?
Giving. I’ve never worked in a place so eager to help others. There are dozens of charitable events in which our employees participate each year. We are Polar Plungers, Be like Brit’ers, Monster Dashers and Color Vibe runners. We run, walk, bowl, build, bake, joke, paint, spell, auction and sing for great causes and make good friends along the way. Laddawn also donates $1 to charity for every online order over $100. Customer choose from six options: The American Red Cross, Easter Seals, The American Cancer Society, The Nature Conservancy, The Boys & Girls Club and Homes for our Troops. Finally, this year, Laddawn was the recipient of the Team Hoyt Award, presented by Dick and Rick Hoyt, for our work in support of Easter Seals of Massachusetts.
The Environment. Laddawn is a Leadership Club Member of EPA’s Green Power Partner Program. That’s because we manufacture with 100 percent renewable energy from sources like wind and solar power. EPA’s Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program helping to increase the use of renewable resources among leading U.S. organizations. This year, Laddawn’s renewable energy purchases will top 20 million kilowatt hours – the equivalent of 22 million fewer pounds of CO2 emissions, taking 2,100 cars off the road or 3,800 tons of waste recycled rather than landfilled.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments