Vip Rubber & Plastic going strong at 60

From left: Bernardyne (Deena) Campana, Tom LeClair, Kathy LeClair, Cindy LeClair and Albert Perez.

When a company is launched with a sound growth plan by a talented leader to guide the business, that usually results in success.

At least that's what happened in 1961 when Howard Winfred Vipperman acquired the assets, including a production plant, of Powers Rubber, an Anaheim, Calif.-based rubber goods maker that had closed, and launched Vip Rubber Co. with a small budget in La Habra, Calif.

Armed with great charisma, talent and the knowledge and expertise gained during a long, successful career in the gasket industry, Vipperman led the upstart company through some early lean years when it primarily produced molded goods, along with extruded rubber and spliced products, to better days and prosperity in the 1970s.

His wife, Bernardyne, came on board to help guide the business in 1964, and his son, Howard Wayne Vipperman, who was 13 when the firm was founded, also pitched in part time during his high school and college years.

The elder Vipperman died in 1979, but his son, a full-time employee by that time, was in the wings to move into the post of president and later chairman of the firm.

Fast forward to 2021 as the now-named Vip Rubber & Plastic Co. celebrates its 60th year as a custom manufacturer of rubber and plastic parts, and the company is even stronger and more diverse than it was during the founder's heyday. The firm is AS9100 certified and works with many of the largest defense, aerospace and agricultural companies globally.

It's still owned and operated by the Vipperman family, with the second-generation Howard Vipperman continuing to serve as chairman of the La Habra-based firm after he relinquished his longtime role as president in 2020. That is when the third generation of the founding family began taking on more critical leadership roles within the company.

But despite changing faces in top key posts, Vip Rubber hasn't missed a beat. Under the leadership of President Bernardyne (Deena) Campana, it continues to grow at a steady clip, as it did in its early days, and always focuses on customer satisfaction, the company said.

As it adds to its base, the firm has some ambitious plans on the drawing board for the future, including acquiring additional capital assets and searching for another manufacturing site to further expand its operation, Vipperman said in a recent interview. Those are just part of a 10-year plan, he noted.

Its additional manufacturing facility would most likely be in a more business-friendly state than California, such as Nevada, Texas or Florida, he indicated.

But the firm's long-term vision calls for a good portion of the firm's existing business — such as its strong aerospace operation — to remain in California where the company operates two plants, said Cindy LeClair, vice president of marketing and government sales.

Vip Rubber has expanded almost every year since its inception, Vipperman said. "Our policy of avoiding disaster means that we have grown organically and not leveraged our investment through large borrowings," he said. "This slow growth and self-financed expansion means that when depressions like the collapse of 2008 occur, we are able to survive."

That's the firm's blueprint for expansions and acquisitions in the future, too, he added.

With the production of molded rubber, extruded rubber and spliced goods as its base in the 1960s, the company's first expansion during that decade was the addition of a plastic extrusion business.

In the 1970s, it added a calender department and then moved into providing products for the defense and aerospace industries, because California was a hotbed for both, according to Vipperman.

"We supplied the oil industry, too," he said. "California also produced a lot of RVs and one of our biggest accounts was Fleetwood Motorhomes.

"We expanded by adding additional buildings until we had four buildings in Anaheim. In 1994, we moved to La Habra and consolidated into a 60,000-square-foot building."

In early 2000, the firm added another plant in La Habra, and in 2015 it expanded again, this time with the addition of a 52,000-square-foot facility in Minden, Nev., that handles its plastic extruded products.

Along the way, the company made key acquisitions: Bentley Manufacturing in 2004; the plastic division of Kirkhill Rubber Co. in 2011; the Bandlock division of Amesbury in 2015; and Excalibur Extrusions in 2017.

Vip's organic growth has included the addition of new technologies and a variety of machinery over the years. Most recently, it purchased a large molding press, two rotocures, an extruder, a microwave, three Normec splice presses, a CDS puller for plastic goods, a chiller and an air compressor at a cost of about $750,000, according to LeClair.

She said the recent equipment purchased was by design. "We have orders for products produced in the machines. We have the largest backlog in the company's history and will need additional machines to produce it," she said.

With about 220 employees spread between its production facilities in California and Nevada, the company has also added new capabilities and customers in the last several years, LeClair said.

While the company has continually grown, it hasn't forgotten its roots, and it continues to meet the needs of smaller businesses that require lower quantities of products, LeClair said, adding that, while much larger today, it continues to operate as a small, friendly and approachable company with four generations of the Vipperman family integrated in the business.

Her mother, Kathy LeClair, chief financial officer and Vipperman's sister, noted that Vip Rubber works with a number of firms that it helped get started. What sets it apart from other family-owned businesses with long histories in their fields is that Vip Rubber's leadership team and employees "care about our customers and we will go out of our way to help [them] when we can."

"We have family members working for us in generations. We put our customers first and will go to extremes to do a job right," Kathy LeClair said.

Personal relationships were the key for the firm's success in its early years, she said, and that philosophy holds true today.

Vipperman said the company has remained a family operation since its inception, although he was a teenager at the time. "I am so blessed to have been here from the beginning. It's also pleasing to see the third and fourth generations taking an interest in the business."

Vip Rubber treats its employees well, too, Kathy LeClair said, and strives to ensure they have good medical care for their families, including dental and vision coverage. "There have been times when upper management [family members] did not take a paycheck in the really lean years" in order to pay employees, she said. The company also has maintained good relationships with its suppliers, she added.

Looking at the current operation and the future, she said "we have determined that we must upgrade our knowledge and put into place employees who can lead and also mentor other employees. We have to meet a much higher quality standard and we must be dedicated to excellence."

In addition, despite the challenges of competing with overseas markets and pricing, Vip Rubber continues to support its country and manufacture products solely in the U.S., according to her daughter, Cindy LeClair. "We continue to evolve because we will not compromise our company's ethical and honest treatment of our customers and their needs," she said.

Vipperman noted that the firm is very diverse, "and it is unusual to find a company with our talent stack."

Vip Rubber is "working every day to improve our processes to reduce cost while improving quality," he said. "Our sales force is both knowledgeable and motivated. Today we have more opportunities than we have ever had. It is exhilarating to contemplate the possibilities."

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