MEET OUR NEW C.F.O.

Confer Plastics is proud to announce the recent hiring of Frank Fedele as our Chief Financial Officer.

Frank comes to the company with an impeccable background, one almost tailor-made for our manufacturing environment. Born, raised and educated in Buffalo, Frank graduated from Canisius College with a B.S. in Finance. Frank has over 30 years of management accounting/finance and business experience to include, State Farm Ins. (Houston, Texas), Westwood Pharmacuetical (Bristol -Myers Squibb), Rich Products, and Practice First (Medical Management Solutions). Additionally, he has owned and operated a custom residential closet and garage organization company and business consulting practice.

Our customers and vendors will be hearing and seeing a lot of Frank...but fear not, it's all good. Frank is a hands-on CFO who values the entire operations -- from product development to production to distribution -- who will do well in saving money for Confer and all of our business partners. He's friendly, insightful, and intelligent...you will enjoy working with him.

Kelly O'Hara -- who previously oversaw financial functions -- is still at Confer Plastics and will continue to foucs on special projects and customer service in our custom molding operations.

GET INTO YOUR HOT TUB SOONER & LESS EXPENSIVELY WITH OUR SPA PAD

With spring in the air and the past winter having been as easy as it gets across the North, peoples’ thoughts are turning to home improvements. Many have bought or will be buying a hot tub.

One of the biggest delays – and surprise added costs – associated with spas are the bases. Many people opt for concrete pads or wooden decks. In either case, you have to wait for the weather to cooperate (and the ground to be dry) and for the contractor’s (or your) schedule to open up. In most cases, this could delay the set-up of your hut tub by weeks. It will cost you a pretty penny, too, nearly $800 dollars.

Our spa pad (also known as the Handi-spa pad) is a faster, cheaper alternative to concrete pads and wooden decks. For $449.99 (MSRP), you can buy 6 of our modular pads, which connect together to make an 8’ x 8’ area, more than sufficient for most hot tubs. Additional pads can be purchased if you have a larger spa. It goes together in minutes: Simply place the pads where you want them, lock them together with the built-in connectors, and you're ready to go. No mess, no waiting, no hassles, no problem.

The Handi-Spa Pad is constructed of durable, weatherproof, high-density polyethylene, offered in a gray color. Each pad measures 32” x 48” x 2” thick and weighs 15 lbs. The underside of the Handi-Spa Pad is formed with built-in “strength” pockets. It has been tested to withstand 300 pounds of pressure per square foot. This was accomplished by applying a total weight of 7000 pounds over a 21-foot square area.

The Handi-Spa Pad is very versatile, and can be used in many outdoor applications such as underneath pool filter equipment (although not under gas heaters), underneath plastic sheds, under trash cans, and inside the garage.

To find a spa pad dealer near you call us at 1.800.635.3213, use the dealer locator on our website, or send us an email to plastics@conferplastics.com

EASTER HOLIDAY HOURS

Confer Plastics will be closed Friday, April 6th through Sunday, April 8th in observance of Easter.

On Easter Monday, April 9th, only the office and shipping/receiving will be open. Full production will resume on Tuesday, April 10th.

Have an enjoyable Easter weekend with your family!

CONFER PLASTICS FEATURED IN NIAGARA GAZETTE

Confer Plastics recently hosted Leadership Niagara. Among this year's LN class is Michele Deluca, the features writer at the Niagara Gazette. In her "Leadership Chronicles" column she follows the monthly adventures of her class. In Sunday's paper she wrote this glowing piece about the company....


March 5, 2012
LEADERSHIP CHRONICLES: Places in Niagara you don't see everyday
By Michele Deluca Niagara Gazette

NIAGARA FALLS — I smiled as a worker walked by, carrying a bundle of gracefully posed, pale white arms. You don’t see that every day.

Nearby, birdhouses were being created, with walls just thick enough so the sun can’t poach the little eggs that might soon be laid inside.

Behind me, there were swimming pool ladders and kayaks. And little pink tables designed to delight any 5-year-old looking to have a cup of pretend tea.

Doesn’t that all sound like a dream someone might have during an uneasy night’s sleep?

It’s actually the orderly, colorful, three-dimensional world of Bob Confer, owner of Confer Plastics in North Tonawanda.

Just the other day, during the February outing with my fellow “students” in the 2012 Leadership Niagara class, I finally got to meet Confer, whose columns appear weekly in the Niagara Gazette.

For years I’ve been reading his impassioned, deeply opinionated columns about all the matters that govern the life of a Niagara County residents. I would look at his picture and wonder how a man who looks so young could write with such certainty about so many topics, often completely against the grain of popular opinion.

He did not disappoint.

His company sits just off River Road in North Tonawanda, where so many have probably passed his place a hundred times without noticing it.

And yet, it’s a thriving, world-class manufacturing company, located in the Niagara Region, run by a third generation owner who wants to help change the world for the better. You don’t see that everyday.

Confer, a Leadership Niagara graduate himself in 2006, was the driving force behind our “Small Business Day” outing. My group had a chance to immerse ourselves in issues that impact those who struggle to make a living for themselves and their families —and their employees — in our region.

In peak season the company employs 230 people making plastic products and sending them all over the world. Just to give a sense of scale, last year they produced 40,000 kayaks, each created in about five minutes. They also produce plastic boat docks and containers for rescue kits, and many other things you wouldn’t think were made in the USA. let alone right here in good old Niagara County.

Confer told us it’s extremely difficult to find machinists to work at his place. There’s apparently a waiting list for the kids that come out of BOCES’ machine shop programs despite the fact that its graduates can earn more money than some people do with college degrees.

Confer Plastics was started by Bob’s grandfather, inventor of the living hinge, a thin strip of plastic that was the forerunner of all sorts of boxes that open and close without hardware. There was no patent on the device. But, Confer’s grandfather’s legacy of inventiveness and drive lives on through his grandson, a leader of Boy Scout leaders whose working motto is “do onto others ...”

After the tour of his plastics company, Confer traveled with our group to Audubon Machinery in Wurlitzer Park, named one of the “fastest growing private companies in the USA,” by Inc. Magazine.

Audubon Machinery is another surprising showplace. The company is a highly honored “green facility” that makes oxygen generating machinery of the type that hospitals in third world countries require to help patients breathe. They also make box-car sized washers to clean animal cages in research labs, as well as solar supplies and micro wind turbines.

The long line of colorful flags that hang over the pristine factory floor is visual evidence that this North Tonawanda company with about 52 employees serves the world.

Who knew?

After a delightful lunch at Suzanne’s Fine Dining, we spent time with Confer and Frank Budwey of Budwey’s Supermarkets. Frank is funny and irreverent and candid about doing business in New York state, and shared his frustrations with the crazy laws and taxation in this state; and how the cost of doing business in any other state is about half of what it is here.

And don’t even get him started on the bottle deposit laws which put the job of collecting dirty, sticky bottles square on the shoulders of supermarkets.

Frank Budwey is a man with a lot to say about changing the way we do business in New York state. Somebody looking for an impassioned speaker would do well to seek out him or Confer. Listening to them it’s clear that those who make the laws governing small business in New York state have never actually tried to run one.

It’s hair-raising to hear their issues, but their words are seeds for a revolution of change. Restoring vitality to the small businessman seems the only way to restore our battered economy. Binding their hands and taxing them to death does not.

In this Leadership Niagara class I am quickly learning that even someone like myself — who thinks they know so much about the region — still has so much more to learn.

Next month we’re heading to Buffalo to meet with the president of First Niagara Bank. We’ll be joined by the 2012 class of Leadership Buffalo.

Molly Anderson, the director of Leadership Niagara said at our first session that her non-profit agency is slowly creating an army of change agents — leaders who understand the benefits of using their power for good. You don’t see that around here every day. But I hope that someday, soon, you will.

Source:

http://niagara-gazette.com/features/x579804399/LEADERSHIP-CHRONICLES-Places-in-Niagara-you-dont-see-everyday

CONFER TO HOST EXPLORER POST IN 2013

Exploring is a worksite-based program of the Boy Scouts of America and is designated for young men and women who are 14 through 20 years old. Exploring units, called "posts", usually have a focus on a single career field, such as police, fire/rescue, health, law, aviation, engineering, or the like, and may be sponsored by a government or business entity.

Stuart Schnettler, an executive with the Polaris District of the Greater Niagara Frontier Council of the BSA, had approached Bob Confer regarding the idea of a manufacturing Explorer post at Confer Plastics. It was an easy sell, as we're always looking for ways to educate the community (especially our youth) on the importance of USA-based manufacturing.

This fall the GNFC will begin the recruitment process for youth to join the post. The program will run in calendar year increments and will feature the following agenda that will follow the life cycle of a product line from start to finish:

Jan: Introduction to Confer Plastics and manufacturing
Feb: Sales & marketing
Mar: Design and engineering
Apr: Production Part 1
May - Aug: Break
Sept: Production Part 2
Oct: Quality & safety
Nov: Distribution, warehousing & HR
Dec: Management and leadership

The kids will be manufacturing experts when they're done!

Detailed sign-up information will be provided later this year.

THE INGENUITY OF THE GREATEST GENERATION

In his weekly newspaper column, Bob Confer ponders the achievements of Confer Plastics founder Ray Confer and his generation in regard to engineering, innovation and science...


CONFER: The ingenuity of the Greatest Generation
By Bob Confer Niagara Gazette

Column by Bob Confer — Last Sunday marked the birth date of my grandfather Ray Confer, who, along with my father, had founded Confer Plastics. Had he been alive he would have turned 90. On that day I had spent some time pondering some of his many inventions, especially his most ubiquitous, something we all use in our day-to-day lives: the living hinge.

Ray designed the living hinge in the early 1960s as a means to more efficiently make plastic tool cases. The addition of metal hinges always added cost to the final product due to materials and assembly and such hinges always placed limitations on overall product design. So, Ray came up with an ingenious way to eliminate the metal hinges by molding a plastic hinge in process as a part of the case itself, rather than as an add on.

Basically, the living hinge is a thin section of plastic that connects two halves of a part to keep them together and allows the part to be opened and closed over and over again. It can be found in toolboxes, tackle boxes, and those plastic clamshells that are used as takeout containers and storage boxes for produce; Ray’s invention is everywhere. This was just one of his many patented ideas and countless more that went unpatented and became norms within the plastic industry and other manufacturing sectors.

His nearly limitless ingenuity got me thinking about how special he and his generation were in regard to engineering and innovation.

The Greatest Generation left an indelible mark on America from the experiences they shared during the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Korean War, and the Golden Era that followed. But, they also introduced so much advancement to us in what was, comparatively, such little time. In a few decades they pushed the limits of technology (and therefore humanity) to extremes that would have been deemed unapproachable just a few years earlier.

Men like my grandfather and other Western New York geniuses like Wilson Greatbatch and Herbert Hauptman devised so many things that dominate our lives today, as did their peers in the local aerospace industry who helped put man into space and then onto the moon. Their compatriots developed transistors, microchips, and the foundations for today’s computer technology.

It can be said without any exaggeration that the generation preceding the Baby Boomers featured the greatest and largest collection of highly-achieving thinkers, designers, engineers, and scientists ever assembled at one time. Most all them lived and worked in anonymity, outside the boundaries of fame, unlike the previous but smaller collections of bright minds of greater renown like our Founding Fathers, the scientists and artists of the Renaissance, and the Greek philosophers.

Who knows if we’ll ever see a peer group even remotely close to the creative intellect of the Greatest Generation. In recent decades it so seems that technology and science aren’t growing at the leaps and bounds they once were under the watch of today’s oldest seniors. Sure, there have been developments in efficiency and communication, but where is the next big thing that’s not a phone or tablet? Why did space travel stall at the Space Shuttle? Why is solar energy still so inefficient? Why are people still starving around the world? Why are we still so dependent on oil?

If Baby Boomers and my generation were even half as talented as their parents and grandparents, those questions — and more — would have been sufficiently answered by now. But, we’re not and chances are none of our heirs will be. The Greatest Generation is known as that for a reason. They set the bar high and it’s difficult for just anyone to attain their heights.

But, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. They set a good example — no, a great example — for us. There’s a lot we can learn from them — not only what they did, but how and why they did it — and that should serve as a template for success and progress far into future generations.

CONFER PLASTICS' OPEN DOOR POLICY FOR TOURS

On Thursday, Leadership Niagara toured Confer Plastics. Please know that we're always available to give plant tours to your community organization (adults and children alike), be it a scout troop, a school group, or a civics organization. If you want to see our operations, contact Bob Confer to book a tour. His address is bob@conferplastics.com

LEADERSHIP NIAGARA TOURS CONFER PLASTICS

More than two-dozen members of this year's Leadership Niagara class toured Confer Plastics on February 16th as a part of their Entrepreneurship Day. The participants were able to walk the factory floor and see a variety of products being made. For most, this was their first look at the inner workings of a manufacturing environment. They also heard from vice-president Bob Confer who talked about the joys of running a business and what leadership methods work within his organization.

This was just one stop on their full day of business activities. They also heard from Joe McMahon of Audubon Machinery - one of the fastest growing businesses in NY -- who spoke about entrepreneurship and gave a great tour of his facility; Frank Budwey of Budwey Markets who discussed some of the government ills faced by small businesses and how they overcome them; and Mark Hoffman of M&T Bank and Jack McGowan of The Western New York Venture Association who discussed funding of start-ups.

Leadership Niagara is a year-long leadership training program for adults who represent a cross section of Niagara County; including business, labor, education, the arts, religion, government, community based organizations, ethnic and minority groups.They meet for daylong sessions held each month addressing diverse, local needs. LN focuses on helping participants to enhance their understanding and recognition of what our community lacks to become a better place to live and work, followed by becoming involved and making it happen. The program provides opportunities for participants to develop their own personal leadership styles and networking opportunities. More information can be found at: http://www.leadershipniagara.com/

If your community organization would like to tour our factory send an e-mail to Bob Confer at bob@conferplastics.com.