Rogers, Minn. — Metro Mold & Design Inc. has been seeing rapid growth thanks to investments in new capacity and partnerships with its largest customers.
Ben Lampron also credits the company's culture, which has enabled it to recruit talented workers.
"One thing we do really well is empower people. So if you find someone who really wants to dive into making business change, putting their print on the business, we allow them to do that," Lampron said. He joined Metro Mold as vice president of consumer and industrial in 2018.
"One thing that attracted me to Metro Mold is when Greg [Heinemann, CEO] said, 'Ben, you come to Metro Mold and you can run the business the way you see fit.' Now an owner saying that to a new VP. I almost didn't believe it, but it's really been the truth. That's very appealing to a lot of people."
In the past two years, Metro Mold has doubled annual sales in its consumer and industrial business, but it's maintained its small-company atmosphere, Lampron said.
"We invest in our people's careers. And we have a lot of fun extracurricular activities," Lampron said. "It's like an old-school, family-owned company, with Christmas parties, hams, turkeys. It's really great. And I come to work excited every day, which is how my team feels too."
Metro Mold has two plants near Minneapolis. The Rogers plant does thermoplastic and thermoset injection molding and blow molding for consumer and industrial customers. A second plant, in Brooklyn Park, Minn., does medical injection molding and also houses the company's tooling operations.