Still Growing
Glendo Corp. celebrates 30 years of making tools, educating users
By Scott Rochat
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Thirty years of history leaves a mark on a company. And in Glendo’s case, the company can leave a mark right back.
Glendo Corp., an internationally known maker of engraving equipment, celebrated its 30th anniversary on Wednesday with an employee lunch.
The Emporia-based company was started in 1977 to sell the powered engraving tools invented by founder Don Glaser. Glaser’s son, D.J. Glaser, is now president of the company.
“We started with three people and I was one of the original three,” said D.J. Glaser, who now has a workforce of about 50. “Today we have what I believe to be the best team of people I’ve worked with yet. ...
“Last year was a record year. We just had a record month. And the thing is, we needed not quite 50 people working at it. One, two or three people can’t do it — there’s no way.”
None of the present workers go back quite as far as D.J. Glaser, although two come close. Both Phil Cisneros and Ken Osborn joined Glendo in 1983.
“To me, it was ‘I will never be able to handle all these parts,’” said Cisneros, an assembler, as he remembered his first day on the job. He first came to Glendo on the advice of a friend after being laid off by Didde.
“You were just surrounded by parts,” he said. “And you had to remember things because they only told you once, so you knew to listen.”
Osborn, who works in inventory management, came to Glendo from Bluestem Farm and Ranch Supply.
“I was working 55 hours a week,” he said. “Then a friend of mine said ‘There’s an opening over here — how’d you like to go from 55 hours to 40?’”
It didn’t take much deciding.
Although Glendo started by making tools, it thrived by teaching others how to use them. The amazing thing, Glaser said, is that nobody saw that opportunity right away.
“We made gizmos,” he said. “We made parts. But car dealers don’t have driver’s ed — they expect people to come to the lot who know how to drive. That was our original model ... but that model wasn’t as effective for engraving, where the skills are rarer.
“It took us 13 or 14 years to figure out we should be actively teaching. We were expecting somebody else to do it and finally came to the realization that no one was going to do it.”
So Glendo started offering classes on how to use the Gravermeister, the GraverMax and its other engraving tools. The result would be a revolution as more people got interested in engraving, rapidly expanding the company’s market beyond just the experts.
“You allow good engravers to be great,” said Rex Pedersen, president of the Firearms Engravers Guild of America, as he spoke to Glendo’s employees on Wednesday.
Today, engravers and engraving students regularly come to Glendo for a weeklong class in how to use the tools. Experts from the U.S. and abroad have come to offer their expertise ... and work with the newest gear.
The desire for longer-term training eventually led Glendo to partner with Emporia State University, allowing ESU to offer the nation’s first degree program in engraving.
The company remains an unqualified success. But for Glaser, it’s not really about the tools any more. It’s about the people who make and use them.
“As you get older, you start to value relationships versus things,” he said. “I’m a tool nut but for me, it’s the people that make you smile when you say good morning, including the customers and the students.”
Both of his longest-serving employees said they felt the same way. And for both Cisneros and Osborn, the time has flown by.
There have been plenty of opportunities for advancement — and in the case of Cisneros, another tool nut, plenty of opportunities to work with gadgets.
And the company still looks like a good bet.
“It’s grown every year,” Osborn said. “So I feel very good about where it stands.”
“And it’s unbelievable where it’s going to be,” Cisneros added.