In 1954, Raymond Baker, a young salesman-turned-entrepreneur purchased a small company that manufactured and imported metal hardness testing equipment. The following year, while on a business trip in England, Baker found a revolutionary new product that he felt was just what was needed back in the U.S.—a clear, nylon braid reinforced, flexible PVC hose. It didn’t fit the hardness tester business, so he started a second business with this new item, Nylobrade.
Today, NewAge Industries is a multi-million dollar manufacturer of plastic and rubber tubing and hose, as well as a supplier of fittings, clamps, and accessories for a wide variety of industrial and high purity applications. Now guided by Raymond’s son, Ken Baker, the company’s offices and manufacturing center are located in Southampton, Pa.
NewAge introduced its AdvantaPure product line in 2002. It was developed to address the special requirements of clean applications and has grown from platinum-cured silicone tubing and reinforced hose to include molded single use manifold assemblies and other products for the pharmaceutical and biologics industries.
In January 2006, the company became employee owned. The program involved the selling of 30% of the company, via shares of stock, to the employees as part of their retirement benefits. As part owners, employees have an added stake in the goals, achievements and successes of the company.
NewAge manufactures and fabricates flexible plastic tubing and reinforced hose and is a supplier of fittings and clamps. The company produces and stocks large quantities of tubing and hose for same day shipment. Materials include PVC, silicone, polyurethane, fluoropolymer, TPR (thermoplastic rubber), nylon, latex, polypropylene, polyethylene, Viton, and more. Styles consist of unreinforced tubing, corrugated or convoluted tubing, and hose reinforced with braided material and/or wire for extra strength and pressure capabilities.
The company also offers an array of fittings and clamps to accompany its plastic tubing and hose. Capabilities for custom extrusions; fabrications such as coiling, heat formed shapes, cut-to-length pieces, and thermal tube bonding; and hose assemblies help extend the company’s product offering.
Company culture
There are brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, parents and children working together at NewAge. In fact, one of the company’s sales representatives, a twelve-year employee, is the son-in-law of a purchasing agent (25 years), who is the daughter of a retired Marketing team member. NewAge is proud to be the winner of the 1998 Greater Philadelphia Family Business of the Year award, a 2009 and 2010 finalist in the Top Small Company Workplaces competition, and a winner of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Top Workplaces 2010, an employee-judged event.
Team members are always learning, always growing, and, like the company, always evolving. They follow a set of Basic Guiding Principles and core values that focus heavily on customer appreciation, respect for others, and a high standard of ethics. As an ESOP company, team members understand that they work toward common goals of success and longevity, and customers are the most important part of that.
One of NewAge’s core values involves creating a positive work environment, and this is addressed in several ways. Team members are kept informed at quarterly meetings where company finances, sales activities, and departmental projects are discussed in an open forum. Events like sales record celebration lunches and Favorite Dish Day give everyone a break from their routines. The team also comes together for charitable events such as on-site blood drives and Toys for Tots.
NewAge promotes its competitive advantages such as a 99.7% product quality rating, a 99.6% order accuracy rating, its excellent financial stability and credit standing, and its plans and actions for becoming a greener company to help distance itself from competitors.
Additionally NewAge places a high value on customers and prospects having access to live people on the phone, not recorded messages and menus. Receptionists answer each call personally during normal business hours and forward the call to the proper team member. The company also prides itself on stocking over 10 million feet of tubing and hose and over 500,000 fittings.
Applications for NewAge Industries’ products include those in industrial sectors and clean operation markets. Examples involve wind turbine blade manufacturing, food and beverage service, appliances, medical devices, toys and recreational vehicles, robotics, MRO, packaging equipment, pools and spas, laboratories and R&D, and pharmaceutical production, where tubing and molded components are used in the manufacture of vaccines and drugs.
The company employs 98, “with two job opportunities open.” And it sounds like all the opportunities can be lucrative—I’m told that current CEO, Ken Baker, started at the company as janitor when he was a teenager.
The future
Sales for 2012 are expected to increase by 13% over last year. Much of the company’s growth has been in the pharmaceutical and biologics markets, although the industrial side has come back strong in 2012. The company aims for controlled, organic growth and uses its own R&D and engineering teams to advance products, as opposed to acquiring other companies. Currently 80% of NewAge’s sales come from the U.S., with 20% foreign (involving approximately 40 countries on five continents).
NewAge is committed to becoming greener. Recent initiatives include lighting upgrades to reduce energy usage, improved warehouse ventilation to reduce cooling costs, company-wide recycling (team members are encouraged to bring in items from home that cannot be recycled through their municipalities), a new industrial trash compactor, new windows to reduce energy costs associated with heating and cooling, the replacement of older electronic motors with high efficiency styles in all manufacturing areas, proper recycling of e-waste (computers, printers, monitors), and the company’s biggest improvement so far, the installation of more than 4000 solar panels on the building’s rooftop. The solar array produces over one megawatt of electricity per year, supplying half of the company’s power needs. All major components were manufactured in the U.S., as stipulated in the contractor bidding process.
Filed Under: Pneumatic equipment + components, Pneumatic Tips, Robotics • robotic grippers • end effectors