Award-winning company celebrates diversity / Alloy Polymers Inc. finds growth in plastics and shares the profits

Monday, July 10, 2000

What do about 100 people from the United States, Mexico, Israel, Russia, Korea, El Salvador, Argentina and seven other countries have in common?

They're all part of Alloy Polymers Inc., a plastics company run by a husband and wife who are natives of India.

The company sees the diversity of its employees as a virtue and offers them a chance to share in its profits. That is just one example of a management style that has earned Alloy Polymers major state and national business awards in the past two years.

Alloy Polymers, which is on Deepwater Terminal Road in Richmond, is run by Subhash and Kamini Pahuja. The company is in the business of compounding highly engineered plastics and resins. Subhash Pahuja, the company's president and chief executive officer, said Alloy Polymers mixes various ingredients into plastic to give it special properties. The plastic is made it stronger or more ductile, depending on what it is being used for.

He said the plastics go into mechanical parts and packaging. The company also provides services to other businesses that use plastics in marketing their products.

"We make the raw material on a customized basis," said Kamini Pahuja, the company's chief financial officer.

We are on the right path

Alloy Polymers won the 1999 U.S. Senate Productivity and Quality Award for Outstanding Achievement. The award is based on a company's record of continuous improvement.

This year, Subhash Pahuja won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the master category for Virginia, while Kamini Pahuja received the Small Business Administration's Women in Business Advocate of the Year award for the state.

"[The awards] are a reaffirmation that we are on the right path and we're doing the right thing," Subhash Pahuja said.

George Duva, managing partner in the Richmond office of Ernst & Young LLP, said Subhash Pahuja's energy and business sense earned him the award.

"His views are evident in the balance of robust communication, extensive empowerment and tangible rewards for his staff," Duva said. "His tenacity and focus make him an outstanding business leader."

Emma Wilson, the women business ownership representative of the Richmond office of the SBA, said Kamini Pahuja has helped bridge the gap for women who want to enter the business world.

He bought the company

Alloy Polymers began when Toronto-based INCO Ltd. attempted to expand into plastics. INCO produces nickel, copper, cobalt and precious metals, and manufactures alloy components for industrial applications.

The new plastics division was having financial problems, but INCO couldn't find a buyer. In 1982, Subhash Pahuja, who worked for Alloy Polymers, decided to purchase the company and started looking for financial backers.

"I must have talked to 50 banks" for a loan, he said, adding that many financial institutions didn't believe he could make the company a success.

"They [the banks] thought, 'If [INCO] couldn't do it, how could you?'" he said.

Subhash Pahuja said the Small Business Administration stepped in and guaranteed a financial institution that a loan made to the Pahujas to buy the company would be repaid. With that help, the Pahujas were able to complete the deal for the plastics division.

Alloy Polymers' New Jersey plant was closed for eight months before Subhash Pahuja bought it. Then he and his family began the task of cleaning the entire plant. They had only three people helping them.

"It was a family affair," he said. "After the first year, we were making a profit."

Moved in 1987

The Pahujas moved Alloy Polymers from New Jersey to Richmond in 1987.

"We needed to expand, and New Jersey was a tough place" to expand, said Subhash Pahuja. "Our goal was to be closer to our customers."

The Pahujas say the company has grown because of a clear focus, hard work, and good management of costs and resources. But Subhash Pahuja said the company's people are the most important reason for its success.

"I feel a great sense of gratitude and an obligation to the people that are here," he said. "They take a lot of pride in their work."

Employees are called employees at Alloy Polymers. In addition to pride, they also have profit. Subhash Pahuja said the company's profit-sharing program gives the company a competitive advantage in attracting workers.

"We have an open-book shop," Kamini Pahuja said. ""That makes it a success."

Flag for every nationality

Flags of every nationality represented by the people employed at Alloy Polymers hang in the workshop, and pictures of all 95 employees greet a visitor from a wall in the lobby.

The employees even give themselves self-evaluations on a daily basis. "They measure themselves," Kamini said. "We don't measure them."

The Pahujas' goals are ambitious.

"We want to be the best company to work for," they said.

That goal includes winning the Malcolm Bal-dridge award. The award was established by National Institute of Standards and Technology and given to the company with the best management system in the nation in the fields of education, business and health care. It is presented by the president of the United States.

"If I can be the best at what I do, that would satisfy my ambitions," Subhash Pahuja said.

Kamini Pahuja said the husband-and-wife partnership has worked well for Alloy Polymers.

"We're worlds apart [in personality], but it's good for business," she said.

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