Like many companies, Ohio Gasket and Shim was facing lean times in 2008 but needed money to expand.
Owners Tom and John Bader didn’t know where to turn for the $500,000 to purchase the laser cutter to make them competitive.
“I looked in my pocket, Tom looked in his and we came up with $23,” John Bader said in a meeting Tuesday with Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel.
Mandel and Huntington Bank officials were in Akron to highlight a state program that helped the 82-employee company, part of OGS Industries, get the loan it needed for a Trumpf TruLaser 2030.
The company is borrowing $564,000 — $400,000 of it at 1.99 percent, because the state has agreed to deposit an equal amount in Huntington Bank without drawing interest. The other $164,000 will be at 4.99 percent.
The program, called GrowNow, is available to Ohio-based companies with fewer than 150 employees that agree to retain or hire at least one employee for every $50,000 borrowed.
Is Ohio Gasket and Shim’s case, that means eight jobs retained with hope for more.
“If I can get enough work in here, we are on the verge of saying we gotta go to a second shift,” John Bader said.
“It’s a good feeling for me to be helpful to the point where you can have a second shift,” Mandel said during his visit to the company’s Evans Avenue building.
Instead of trying to struggle through with a 13-year-old machine that is near the end of its service, John Bader said the company now can attract big, new customers.
“Financing was a big ‘to-do’ about it,” he said. “Yes, we knew we would have a return. Yes, I could have gone after a cheaper model, but it would not achieve what the goals were, and that was … ‘How fast can you service accounts?’ ”
Mandel said he is trying to change Ohio government’s attitude toward business.
“In the past there has been this attitude in Columbus that businesses are guilty until proven innocent, and we are trying to change that culture so we can facilitate and work with businesses to compete in the global workplace,” he said. “You need to have the sharpest tools in the shed to compete in the global workplace.”
Additional information about GrowNow is available at www.grownow.ohio.gov/.
Dave Scott can be reached at 330-996-3577 or davescott@thebeaconjournal.com.
