Kukla, M. (May 28, 2006). Primera Plastics Proves it's Numero Uno; Minority-Owned Company Enjoys Success with Awards, $19 Million in Sales. Grand Rapids Press. p.N.2

It has been a very good year for Noel Cuellar and Ethan Barde at Primera Plastics Inc. in Zeeland. Their 12-year-old injection molding company recently received several awards, including Main Street USA-Best Small Business for 2006; Best Small Business of the Year, Region 7, by the Michigan Small Business Association; named an Edward Lowe Foundation top 50 Michigan Companies to Watch. On top of all of that, the company is expected to hit sales this year of $19 million, based on a current growth rate of 18 percent. "It's taken a lot of hard work, a great staff and continuous improvement of equipment and systems to get here," said Cuellar, company president and chief executive officer.

The two entrepreneurs and third founder Janet Cuellar, Noel's wife, worked for the former Prince Corp. (now Johnson Controls Inc.) in the early 1990s and decided to start the business as a supplier for the Prince automotive division. "Prince was looking for a minority-owned company to be a supplier, and we felt we had the capabilities to be that supplier," said Barde, whose partners are Hispanic. The three-person company started with two presses and a modest forecast to do $250,000 in sales the first year. They beat that projection by more than 300 percent, marking nearly $1 million in sales.

Since then, Primera Plastics has grown, providing precision plastic pieces for the automotive and furniture industries, to such companies as Gentex Corp., Herman Miller Inc., Lacks Industries and Magna Donnelly Corp. Today, Primera Plastics has 140 employees, 29 robotic-enhanced production systems at its new 106,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, at 3424 Production Court in Zeeland. The company's work force is 80 percent Hispanic, and last year Primera was named 2005 Business of the Year by the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for its growth and minority hiring practices. "Primera Plastics is a great example of the entrepreneurship that exists in our community," Holland Area Chamber of Commerce President Jane Clark said. "I think Primera is proof that the opportunity exists for an innovative company to thrive and grow in a difficult economy."

In 2005, Cuellar and Barde hired the company's first outside executive. Bob Buresh is the company's general manager. "We had reached a point where we were all wearing too many hats, and we needed to bring in someone to keep us competitive," Cuellar said. He credits Buresh with reducing overall inventory and creating more production capacity for the firm. Cuellar, 46, was born in Texas and raised in Holland. A self- described poor student in high school, he studied plastics manufacturing in night courses at Grand Rapids Community College before starting the company. Barde, 37, is a Kansas native who graduated with a degree in plastics engineering from Pittsburgh State University in Pittsburgh, Kan. "Except for the Prince Corp., I have never worked for anyone but myself, and I saw starting Primera Plastics as an opportunity waiting to happen," Barde said. "Part of our success has been our philosophy of treating our customers right with on-time delivery of a quality product at competitive prices," Barde said. He said the company also continued to pump profits back into the business with equipment investments and staff training for lean manufacturing and robotics.