ACG Western Michigan Recognizes Bradford Company for Outstanding Growth
Bradford Company's focus on innovation led ACG Western Michigan to honor the business with its 2020 Outstanding Corporate Growth Award in August.
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2020 issue of Middle Market Growth.
This year has prompted many businesses to begin exploring ways to retool their operations to stay relevant.
For Bradford Company, a manufacturer based in Holland, Michigan, innovation was a priority long before COVID-19, and it’s contributed to the sustained growth that led ACG Western Michigan to honor Bradford as its 2020 Outstanding Corporate Growth Award winner during a virtual ceremony in August.
The fifth-generation family-run company makes packaging used primarily in the automotive industry. Customers use Bradford’s industrial chipboard partitions and custom engineered reusable and returnable interior protective packaging solutions to transport auto parts between original equipment manufacturers and their suppliers.
Bradford’s packaging is used to ship headlamps, door panels and “really anything with a Class A-friendly service that needs to be protected,” said Tommy Bradford, a member of the Bradford family and the company’s director of operational support, speaking during a video about the company broadcast during the award ceremony.
The company prides itself on working with customers to develop packaging solutions that meet their needs.
“I think what’s separated us in the industry is the horsepower that we have, and the responsiveness we have to our customers,” said Tom Bradford, the company’s president and CEO, and a fourth-generation member of the Bradford family, during the video.
Originally founded in 1897 as W.J. Bradford Paper Company and incorporated in 1924, the company today operates eight manufacturing locations across North America.
That expansion reflects the owners’ vision for the company. “Some families run their business as a lifestyle. We were ingrained to run the business as a business,” Tom Bradford said. “We have the ability to think generationally, in terms of years rather than three-month quarterly reports.”
The company has embraced a culture of innovation, with an eye toward working with customers to solve problems, while also finding ways to improve Bradford’s internal operations.
“Our entire organization operates in a job-shop environment. We’re able to dance on our feet to be able to come up with not only a product solution, but also a solution internally to allow us to reduce our overhead,” said Tim Bublitz, vice president of engineering. “We’re very proud to be that leading edge of our industry.”
Bradford’s performance caught the attention of ACG Western Michigan, which awards a local company each year that demonstrates sustained growth in sales, profitability, employment and community involvement.
I think what’s separated us in the industry is the horsepower that we have, and the responsiveness we have to our customers.
Tom Bradford
President and CEO, Bradford Company
In past years, ACG Western Michigan has hosted an in-person awards event in March to honor the Outstanding Growth Award winner and finalists. But the pandemic forced it to postpone the ceremony to August, and ultimately to change the format to a virtual event.
Still, ACG Western Michigan found a way to present the Bradford team with an engraved crystal award, which identified Bradford and the prior 16 winners by year in which the award was won. ACG shared that presentation via a pre-recorded video played during the awards event.
Although not the awards presentation ACG Western Michigan envisioned at the start of the year, the virtual adaptation was a fitting tribute to a company that’s built its success on creative problem solving and a willingness to learn and evolve in an ever-changing market.
“We spend a great deal of energy to stay in front of it,” said Bublitz. “We learn from the failures, then go again.”
Kathryn Mulligan is the editor-in-chief of Middle Market Growth.
