Creative Foam Corporation: Where Success Is Defined by Great Customers, Great Suppliers, and Great People 
By Mindy Kroll
Universal Advisor, 2007 Issue No. 1

“I’m very bullish about the Great Lakes Region,” states Creative Foam Corporation CEO, Wayne Blessing, matter-of-factly. “There’s so much focus on larger companies that are struggling, but that’s not representative of the region. The small and midsized companies are largely ignored. These are the region’s technology drivers — companies that are finding creative ways to use their skills to diversify their businesses. And they’re doing just fine.”

Creative Foam Corporation is one such company.

A Little Background

Headquartered in Fenton, Michigan, Creative Foam has 700 staff members located in 6 manufacturing facilities and 1 engineering center in Michigan, Indiana, and Tennessee. Approximately 80 percent of their business is supplying automotive OEMs and Tier Ones with acoustic absorbers, seals, vibration dampening, and thermal insulating products. The other 20 percent — which represents a growing segment of their business — focuses on providing large OEMs in the medical industry with patient positioning and MRI components.

Since its inception in 1969, Creative Foam has been dedicated to providing their customers with innovative technology. In fact, their reputation as a purveyor of leading-edge technology was ultimately responsible for their initial foray into the medical industry. “We did a couple of special projects for the medical industry, and once we got our feet wet, we realized there could be additional opportunities providing similar technology to other customers within the industry,” remembers Blessing. Today, that facet of the business is growing by about 25 percent annually.

The Formula for Success

Creative Foam believes that to be a successful manufacturing organization, three ingredients must be in place: great customers, great suppliers, and great people, although not necessarily in that order. “We see too many companies whose leadership doesn’t embrace some or all of these concepts, and they ultimately demonstrate mediocre performance or fail completely,” says Blessing.

That’s not to imply that Creative Foam doesn’t have its challenges. “We have all the same issues and pressures that you hear and read about — rising health care costs, rising raw material prices, low cost foreign competition,” says Blessing. “You name it, we’ve got it, too. But we have a chance at beating these threats if we’re working with great customers — those who really listen to and protect their suppliers’ ideas.”

Great suppliers are also essential to Creative Foam’s success. “We nurture suppliers who have state-of-the-art materials and processing technology. This allows us to bring new, innovative, competitive products to our customers, and these are the suppliers who are finding ways to offset rising raw material costs.”

And great people? “You absolutely must have great people,” Blessing says emphatically. “People who can embrace and implement change rapidly, who are smart consumers of health care, who share your values, and who can be part of a team and have a long-term view of what personal success and satisfaction really mean. The thing that impresses me daily is what great people we have and how focused they are on working to help our customers; it makes my job easy!”

Every Cloud Has One

Although the downturn in the automotive industry has affected Creative Foam, they remain optimistic. “Although I believe that the domestic automotive industry will continue to shrink, I also believe that those companies that survive will be better and stronger than ever.” For Creative Foam, the downturn has allowed more time and resources to focus on their ever-growing medical business — a silver lining around one very dark cloud. “Automotive will always be the largest and most important part of our business,” he says, “but diversification has become part of our overall strategy going forward.”

Blessing continues, “It’s a tough time, no doubt about it, but there’s a lot to be positive about. Because of the automotive industry, we have very good tooling and machine-building capabilities both within our company and within the region; a lot of companies here are leading edge from a process manufacturing standpoint. We have plants in Tennessee and Indiana, but we’re consistently coming back to Michigan for the technology side of our business, because there’s so much expertise here in the area. And then there’s the workforce: well educated, knowledgeable, and hardworking.”

Sounds reminiscent of one ingredient in the formula for success. “Absolutely,” agrees Blessing. “Great people, great customers, great suppliers. Now we just need more of them!”