Bob Bertelsen cannot recall how many times he has expanded his company, A Plus Powder Coaters, in Northeast Ohio.
Bob Bertelsen“It’s been about 12, I think,” says Bertelsen, who started A Plus in 1996 in a small 11,250 square feet operation. “We are at 95,000 square feet, but by the end of the year, we should be 115,000 as we're adding two more buildings this year.”
When Bertelsen began A Plus Powder Coaters, he envisioned a simple production shop with possibly a conveyor line and a batch system. The company's growth has even impressed him.
“I thought maybe eventually do media blasting, a handful of people, and I envisioned it getting to maybe 40,000 square feet with 20 to 25 employees; just a nice size for a shop,” Bertelsen says.
Running Three Shifts and Driven to Succeed
A Plus Powder Coatings is at 95,000 square feet, but by the end of the year will be 115,000 as they add two more buildings.Today, that 95,000-square-foot operation—and soon—to—be larger footprint—runs three shifts a day and employs 72 people. This is more than Bertelsen ever thought possible when he started the company, but you could say he was “driven” to succeed.
Bertelsen is a racing fanatic who drives and builds muscle cars. He is one of the country's most well-known custom builders and racers, and his cars have been featured in many hot rod and racing publications over the past several decades.
Bertelsen has been building cars since he was a teenager. Up until 2002, none of his cars gained national attention. In 1992, Bertelsen restored a 1967 Camaro that had been his mom’s first car she owned but never won national awards.
“I read in Hot Rod Magazine in 1996 about powder coating, but I had never heard of it, and I didn't understand it,” he says. “But I read it in Hot Rod that it was the next trend in car building, and I thought, ‘Maybe my car would win some shows if I powder coated some parts.’”
Terry WatsonHe planned to powder coat the intake, paint the motor, and repaint the inner fenders and the body color.
“I wanted to just jazz it up,” Bertelsen says. “I went to two different powder coaters, and one told me it'd be eight to 10 weeks; the other said 10 to 12 weeks. They were both what I call little ma-and-pop shops, one-man operations.”
When he visited one of the shops to discuss coating his parts, the owner told him he was too busy to explain the process and told Bertelsen to talk to him while he worked.
“And being that I have a background in painting cars, when he pulled parts out of the oven, by the time our conversation was done, the parts were cool enough that he could touch them and handle and wrap them in foam,” he says. “I was mesmerized because you never touch a car part that you've wet painted for days. And then he told me it's 10 to 12 weeks. And I thought, ‘There's room for competition.’”
Filling a Powder Coating Niche for Quality Production
A Plus runs three shifts a day and employs 72 people.Bertelsen says he drove over an hour from his home in Columbiana, Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border, so he knew that a powder coating operation would fill a niche in the area.
One of the first people he hired was Terry Watson as a shop supervisor, but he quickly joined the sales department when they saw how big a niche they needed to fill. He quickly saw how Bertelsen positioned his new powder coating company, just like he designed and built race cars, with an eye towards perfection.
“ The one thing that helped me out is that, early on, Bob established the company based on quality and service,” says Watson, now the A Plus Sales Manager. “We don't even attempt to always be the cheapest guy on the block. You're typically giving something up when you're the cheapest guy on the block. Bob is extremely picky, and therefore, so is his company. That helps us sell that level of service and quality.”
“The beauty of having both batch and conveyor systems is it is an extremely diverse customer base.”
The OEM and manufacturing market also began to realize this. They started with a conveyor line and a small batch system and have since added two large batch systems capable of 30-foot parts. In 2005, A Plus Powder Coaters added its first 15-foot x 30-foot blast room, and a second blast room of the same size was added in 2015. In 2022, a larger 15-foot x 40-foot blast system was added, and in 2023, a tumble blaster was also added to complement the two blast cabinets for smaller items.
Today, the company offers over 500 colors, textures, and chemistries and can meet specific powder coating product needs from one part to one million. Some of its coatings are purchased from Kroma Coatings in Columbus, Ohio, a relatively new vendor in the powder coating market with which A Plus Powder Coaters plans to grow its partnership.
Shooting for Zero Rejects in Monthly Totals
Watson says they average around 120,000 coated parts monthly and aim for zero rejected parts. Watson says they average around 120,000 coated parts monthly and aim for zero rejected parts. While perfection isn’t always achievable, they come pretty darn close. In January, they coated 105,892 parts and had just 23 rejected. This statement is prominently displayed on A Plus Powder Coaters’ monthly home page.
”The beauty of having both batch and conveyor systems is it is an extremely diverse customer base,” Watson says. “We have companies that do huge volumes of aftermarket automotive parts or heavy equipment parts, and then we have companies that do a lot of large architectural gates and large production machinery. It helps me out that we have such a diverse workload and can handle that kind of project.”
Bertelsen says the goal of perfection comes from the racing in his blood.
“I'm competitive, and I wanted to be the best in the area,” he says. “If we do powder coating, I wanted to be the best. I didn't want just to be status quo. And so we've never been the guy people come to when they need a down-and-dirty price. We're not your guy. If you need quality and service, we're the right people.”
“We decided that we would change our culture within our company. We had negative people up to that point, and we'd always look for ways to get rid of them by writing them up so we wouldn't have to pay unemployment. And what it did to us was it made the other employees quit because they hated working with someone who's just a miserable person to be around.”
Bertelsen says the goal is zero returned parts each month, but realistically, they shoot for less than 10 out of the 120,000 parts they run monthly. In 2024, they had 6 months with zero returns.
He says customers appreciate that A Plus Powder Coaters is as close to a minuscule reject rate as can be mathematically determined, especially when he says the average powder coater has a reject rate of 2% or higher, and they average less than 1/10 of a percent; to be exact their four-year average is 0.06%.
“That's what customers are paying for,” he says. “They want to know they get parts that are good to go and don't have to send a bunch back or even sort through them. They pay for us to do that. Our cost might be a little more, but it saves them time from sorting good from bad and possibly shutting down their assembly process.”
After a Struggle, a Cultural Remodel
Bertelsen is a racing fanatic who drives and builds muscle cars. His cars have been featured in many hot rod and racing publications over the past several decades.But it wasn’t always perfection and success for A Plus Powder Coaters. Bertelsen says the first 10 to 15 years were a struggle, and he says he didn’t feel his team was moving in the right direction as a company. There was some negativity among the troops, and he didn’t like the way they didn’t always work in unison.
That is when Bertelsen decided over a decade ago to take charge, change what he could, and get everyone on the same page.
“We did what I would call a cultural remodel,” he says. “We decided that we would change our culture within our company. We had negative people up to that point, and we'd always look for ways to get rid of them by writing them up so we wouldn't have to pay unemployment. And what it did to us was it made the other employees quit because they hated working with someone who's just a miserable person to be around. After all, I didn't want to pay unemployment.”
A Plus Powder Coaters brought in a consultant to help them change the culture and help Bertelsen and his employees see the value in treating their co-workers better and making them more valuable. The change in philosophy worked for both the owner and his team.
“We had a facilitator say, ‘What do you want to be known for?’ The guy told me I must be quiet because I’m a talker. He said the employees have to establish the values, not you. If you want them to live by them, believe in them, and buy into them, they must establish them.”
“I tell people all the time, the employees are my greatest assets,” Bertelsen says. “I can have the biggest building and the nicest equipment, but without great employees, it is all worthless.”
The residual impact of those philosophical changes is still there today, and it is what drives A Plus Powder Coaters to try to be the perfect partner for its customers.
During their recent monthly meeting with staff and employees, the group discussed ways to improve communication between shifts and how to value the other shifts.
“That's always an issue in any company with multiple shifts,” Bertelsen says. “They didn't do this or set me up for failure.” We work on that, and we talk about it. We work on how we can improve it and set the next shift up for success. And when we did that, people started to take ownership of the company and value what they did.”
Employee Retention Rate Goes Way Up
A Plus Powder Coaters used to turn over several people every year or two, but now Bertelsen says they have 20 people who have been with the company for over 10 years.As a result, the A Plus Powder Coaters employee retention rate went way up. They used to turn over several people every year or two, but now Bertelsen says they have 20 people who have been with the company for over 10 years, and longevity is improving yearly.
Part of the exercises the consultant works with the A Plus Powder Coaters on is creating values they want to live by in the workplace.
“We had a facilitator say, ‘What do you want to be known for?’” Bertelsen says. “The guy told me I must be quiet because I’m a talker. He said the employees have to establish the values, not you. If you want them to live by them, believe in them, and buy into them, they must establish them.”
They eventually identified respect, attitude, and quality as the traits they wanted to be known for in the coating workplace. Bertelsen says the employees of A Plus Powder Coaters have continually worked toward these values, and it shows.
“I am very proud of our culture, and it is evident to our customers whenever they tour our facility,” says Bertelsen, who has written a book about their culture and what they do to make A Plus Powder Coaters a great company. The book, “The Christian Entrepreneur,” can be bought on Amazon or the website www.finishlineresources.com.
”We are excited about giving tours, and it's not a nervous moment. It's invigorating to us because we get to show our capabilities, how we do things, and who we are."
As for quality and customer service, Watson says he or the quality manager makes it a practice to personally go to the new customer and inspect and audit their first order once the parts have arrived at their facility whenever possible. He says they rarely encounter severe issues or defects, but it helps us understand their customer’s expectations and quality criteria. Most of the time, no quality or packaging issues need to be changed, but if there are, he says they can implement changes to meet the customer’s expectations.
Watson also personally delivers the initial quote to the customer whenever he can.
“Terry shows up for the first order to do an inspection and asks, ‘Does this meet your expectation?’” Bertelsen says. “It’s setting standards for what they need so that our quality team can have a standard. We want to exceed what a customer needs, but we don't want to offer a class A finish when all you wanted was a class C finish because it can be done for less money.”
Active in Various Industry Trade Groups
One thing that sets A Plus Powder Coaters apart is its willingness to welcome customers to visit and tour its facility.Both Bertelsen and Watson are active in various industry trade groups. Watson was the past chairman of the Powder Coatings Institute's Certification Committee. A Plus Powder Coaters is a PCI 3000 certified custom coater; a comprehensive audit demonstrates they can meet a high professional standard in the industry.
”We learn a little something every time we pass our audits,” Watson says. “When you get a third party who comes in with a neutral eye and looks at things, I don't know that there's been a time yet when we haven't had an ‘aha moment’ where we saw something we could be doing better here. We then implement those recommendations and take those results to heart.”
One thing that sets A Plus Powder Coaters apart is its willingness to welcome customers to visit and tour its facility.
”We are excited about giving tours, and it's not a nervous moment,” Watson says. “It's invigorating to us because we get to show our capabilities, how we do things, and who we are. He says their facility shows very well, as it is neat and organized."
One of the things that impresses customers is their state of the art data base; they developed software to quote, track jobs internally, invoice and even collect data on all parts.
“We know who and when anyone touches a part,” Watson says. “We even automatically collect vital information such as oven temp, line speed, and titrations of our pretreatment, along with all pertinent information about any given part or job. We've grown to where it's not just the Bob and Terry show. We have operations managers, estimators, quality personnel, and great supervisors, and those guys have done a great job.”
Bertelsen says having such an amazing team has allowed us to create and sustain growth.
“I am so proud of the A Plus Powder Coaters employees,” he says. “They make coming to work fun and exciting. I wouldn’t trade my job for anything.”
