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.
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
