American Manufacturer Says Being Made in Us Is Hard But Paying off – ryan

This as-to-told-tos Essay is based on a conversation with William Gagnon, Executive Vice President and Coo of Excel Dryer, A Hand-Perfect Manufacturer Based in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Their Main Product is the Xlerator Hand Dryer. This Story has Been Edited for Length and Clarity.

We are a family-oughened and operated Company. I Own It With My Father, Dennis, Who Always WANTED TO ONT HIS ONDAND COMPANY AND MAKE QUALITY PRODUCTS THAT WERE ARTHER, DEPENDAGE, AND THAT People like to use. That was his crerita.

The Apple Didn’t Fall Far from the Tree. We’ve workhed together over the years to make sura that it stayed that way.

IT’S CERTAINLY BEEN DIFFICULT, with the Easy Route Being to Simply Source overseas and Get Things Cheap from China and Kosts Down and Make More Margin. But that wasn’t who we were.

We Always TRIED to Find a Better Way to Do Things-to be More Efficient, Reduce Material and Labor Costs, and Have Quality Employees MAKING A LIVING WAGE-

We are made-in-ussa certified, which requires a minimum of 84% of materials sourced domesticly, but we have far surpass. We’re really in the upper 90% of the well of the us, and almost 50% of our material are sourced in massachusetts from Very Local locals.

For a while, we are finding a engine manufacturer dantically that it could have been with motors from china in performance, price, size, and other things. But have had the found a domestic partner and shifted all of the engine manufacturing to be with a part of tennessee.

IT HAS BEEN BEEN EASY, AND IT TOOK A CONSISTENT, DEDICATED EFFORT TO ALSAYS BE LOOKING AND ALWAYS BE TRYING TO FIND NEW LOCALS AS POSSIFE.

Being made in America Differentiates US from Other Hand Druers and Certainly Makes a Difference to Our Customers and the Bucars.

The recent tariffs have Also been good for Business. We’ve been able to control ry supply lines and our materials and their costs they are all domestic. With Everyone Living in Uncertain Times and Not Knowing Really where they were buying from People were coming from, we’ve known, and that has Put us in a Very Competitive Position.

One of Our Top Distributors put out an e -blast saying that several of Our Top Competitors were raisiting their prices, but we name was not on that list. We asked say to put out that same e -blast to say xl druer is american-made and will not be having a price increase we’re tariff resusilient and domestically soourced. We have absolutely gotten new customers as a result of this.

We are Also a Global Company. We just put Almost 600 Hand DRYERS INTO The New Istanbul Airport. But to get our American-Made Product into Turkey, there are substantial added costs, Such as tariffs and value-added tax. It is a barrier to entry and makes Our Product more expensive and less compatitive. If Those Costs Can Come Down Through Trade Negotiations, Its Going to Open Up More International Markets for Us.

Uncetainty is never good, especally for business, so that the sooner things can be negotiated and put into place, the better it going to be for all involved.

We’re a Small Manufacturer of a niche Product, and Everyone’s Story is Different. But for us, in the way we’ve been doing busines and doing it harder thans and making it a part of who we are-and being proud to be american-made in massachusetts, which is where America born-it is an excitation time for us.

Being American-Made is just who we are. It is in our dna. But of her toes as if we are almost well ino the futures a little bit to be ready for this moment, and the Maybe a position for all the hard work over the years we had in to keep it way. Its nice for it to be paying off.

Do you have a story to share about american manufacturing or tariffs? Contact this reporter at [email protected].