News & Announcements: Bradford Company

Bradford Company has been announced as the 2020 Outstanding Growth Award winner, presented by the Western Michigan Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth!

Founded in 1954, the Association for Corporate Growth (acg.org) has chapters worldwide representing 15,000 members. ACG serves 90,000 investors, owners, executives, lenders and advisers to growing middle-market companies. ACG’s mission is to drive middle-market growth.

The annual ACG Outstanding Growth Award is presented to a company that demonstrates outstanding growth in sales, profitability, or employment, as well as continuous community involvement. Bradford Company representatives received the award on August 19, 2020.

A huge thank you to our customers and employees who share in this achievement!

It’s much more than an acronym about how fast we solve packaging challenges here at Bradford. It’s a set of critical interacting principles.

Much like how the four bases in a strand of DNA form the building blocks of life, the principles of F.A.S.T.™ infuse passion, parameters, and purpose into everything we do at Bradford — ensuring we exceed our customers’ expectations.

“The F.A.S.T. model is really a set of key principles that we always come back to when helping our customers protect their products and their reputation,” says Tom Bradford, President and CEO of Bradford Group Inc. “We don’t operate without it. It’s our corporate compass, our battle armor.”.

Why is F.A.S.T. worthy of descriptions like “compass” and “battle armor”? To answer that here’ a quick deep-dive into each of our four “DNA principles”.

F = Forward Thinking

We anticipate and plan for the future in order to better serve the needs of our customers, our team, our vendors, and our community.

A = Agile

We expect things to change quickly and with urgency. Therefore, we adapt and redeploy resources across our company to meet the evolving requirements of our customers.

S = Simple

Our goal is to simplify products, processes, and relationships. We strive for clear communication in all endeavors.

T = Trustworthy

Integrity is at the heart of every interaction amongst our team, our vendors, our customers, and our community.

So F.A.S.T. isn’t about speed of delivery, but rather a set of principles that allows Bradford to be fast. Our solutions do move quickly, from concept to completion, but not because of haste. Our efficiency is driven by the way our principles infuse everything we do with an optimum level of performance.

“We don’t settle for ‘good enough’. Our DNA as a company doesn’t allow us to,” says Bradford. “As we extracted these four F.A.S.T principles from that engine-revving DNA, it became clear why we don’t settle. We have a passion for going beyond the ‘that works’ packaging solution and instead driving forward, always racing toward the future with our innovation, being more agile, simplifying products and systems, and never losing the hard-earned trust of everyone we work with.”

It was a fiesta-worthy milestone. Bradford de Mexico (BdM), a wholly owned subsidiary of Bradford Group Inc., celebrated more than 20 years of service to North American manufacturers from within Mexico. To commemorate the occasion, employees from multiple Bradford locations in Mexico and the United States converged at the BdM headquarters in Monterrey for a day of celebration.

“We’re so thankful to our customers and employees at BdM and in the United States for hitting the ground running 20 years ago and continuing to grow and expand our capabilities here in Mexico,” said Tom Bradford, President and CEO of Bradford Group Inc., who was on hand for the festivities.

Established in 1997, BdM provides custom returnable / reusable packaging, Work In Process, and one-way shipping solutions for automakers and their suppliers. BdM’s range of products includes steel racks, molded plastic containers of all sizes, custom fabricated totes, textiles and custom sewing solutions, and paper-based boxes and partitions using a wide variety of internal packaging materials. Along with manufacturing services, BdM offers an impressive Design Center and a certified package testing laboratory.

As the Mariachi entertained everyone on hand and the cake was cut, there was plenty of time to reflect. The success of the last 20 years has been great. However, without question, there was an even greater enthusiasm for what’s next.

Bradford adds, “Looking forward, we see our presence in Mexico continuing to grow. We’re excited to see what the next 20 years brings as we fulfill our F.A.S.T. (Forward Thinking, Agile, Simple and Trustworthy) mission of meeting and exceeding customer and employee expectations.”