Rulmeca Corp.
rulmecacorp.com
Year founded:2003
Number of employees: 11
Top official: Michael J. Gawinski, president
Company description: “We enable conveyor system operators and engineers to benefit from Rulmeca Motorized Pulleys through reasonably priced sales, local assembly and service.”
Target market: “We serve conveyor system operators and engineers in the U.S. and Latin America in aggregate and sand production, mining and mineral processing, food processing and logistics/warehouse/manufacturing.”
Company growth: “Founded in 2003, we have grown from two men in a small office to 11 people in a new 20,000-square-foot building and annual sales in excess of $9 million. We serve equipment manufacturers directly and end users through a network of independent distributors and local service providers.”
How has your product helped impact the region’s economic development? “A subsidiary of Rulmeca Group, we are the liaison between our customers and Rulmeca factories in Europe, using the Port of Wilmington for bi-monthly import shipments. We have hired employees from UNCW and Cape Fear Community College. We obtain services including freight, IT support and steel fabrication from local and regional companies.”
Coastal Live Edge Custom Furniture
facebook.com/ coastalliveedge.edge
Year founded:2013
Number of employees: 2
Top official: Jon McDow, owner/artisan
Company description: “We design and build custom furniture and building features with locally sourced wood varieties. We sawmill logs into lumber that we use in our products.”
Target market: “People and businesses that value having that one-of-a-kind piece and knowing where it came from.”
Company growth: “Starting out, the products we made were only for residential applications, and I was working out of a garage at my house. Since then, my company has grown to also do a large number of commercial projects – both locally and out of state. I also moved my shop to a location that is much larger and more efficient. A local gallery now carries my products and several builders and designers also incorporate custom pieces from us pretty regularly.”
How has your product helped impact the region’s economic development? “By recycling fallen trees and wood from older structures into usable lumber we help prevent them from taking up landfill space. We also offer a product that helps people to spend locally over ordering from a large manufacturer. We give the builders and designers we work with a unique product to offer their clients that will last for generations.”
Bluewater Surfaces
On Facebook
Year founded:2009
Number of employees: 9
Top official: Dustin Braudway, owner
Company description: Unique surfaces company specializing in concrete, marble, quartzite and limestone
Target market: Architects/designers
Company growth: “We have completed some of the work in the most expensive properties in the tri counties. Every day we reach more and more architects/designers looking to think outside the box.”
How did you originally come up with the concept for your product? “Third-generation marble fabricator/setter that really likes design and art. Fortunate to also have a brotherin- law who is one of the top three guys in the world for concrete countertop products and have had the privilege to be taught the concrete artisan side of it from him. So I mold the two together, marble and concrete.”
What are your future goals for the product? “Spring/summer hope to have a set of designs that can be produced for the mass sink market. There are a lot of sink designs and concepts out there, and it will take some time, but we hope to take it from a state to national level. Currently, we make sinks as requested by clients and ship them. The goal is to make a small mass design sink and still offer the truly unique one-offs for the higher-end market.”
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