Success Story
Details
This company specializes in liquid and powder coatings and produces a wide range of interior and exterior finishes to individual customer specifications. The company suffered from continued shrinking market share and import competition was primarily from OEM customer sourcing production and associated coating work offshore. As a result, 2009 sales decreased 45% and employment decreased 32%.
The company, with assistance from the University of Southern California’s Western Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (Western TAAC), became certified as trade impacted by the US Dept. of Commerce, Economic Development Administration (EDA) in 2009. Western TAAC and the company’s management developed a strategy to position the company as the leading coating provider throughout California.
The strategy focused on those customers requiring higher value-added technical support and specialized coating. The company will finish its final year in the implementation phase of the TAA Program in 2014. It has successfully implemented two marketing projects and one production project is in process. Since beginning its public/private sector partnership with the TAA for Firms Program, sales increased 72% to $5.9M, employment increased 57% to 72 employees with 26 new employees.