The Evans Adhesive Corporation

growth. The big companies can’t do that – they’re not as nimble. We try to make sure we get the customer what they need, when they need it, with the quality that they expect, as well.” BVM: Your company tagline is: Experience – the Difference. What does it mean? Thompson: “What separates us from much of our competition comes down to our experience. Our guys in the field can call on a customer, or receive a phone call from a customer, and answer the question, directly. Many of our larger competitors – they get a phone call, and if they return the phone call, they still have to check with the chemist to find out what to do, what to recommend, whereas, we already have that experience. Most of the time, they can address it from the field because of their vast experience and knowledge base. They know what’s going on; they’ve seen all the applications and it’s just faster and easier for them to address the problem, directly. We’ve seen nearly every glue application out there and we can quickly ascertain faster than our competition what it is they need.” BVM: You mentioned how you deal with your customers; what is your relationship with your suppliers? Thompson: “A supplier and a customer are both critical to our success. The better the relationship we have with suppliers, the more success we’re going to have with our customer base. It goes hand in hand. As President, I spend as much time with our supply base as I do with our customers. I found that critical because I need the ear of the supply base to listen to what our needs are - supply, price, technology, development – whatever it may be, we go through that process because we need that supplier to understand where we are at any given time. Our success is their success. That goes across the entire supply base, and they’re all equally and critically important – from the guy that supplies us drums, to the trucking company that ships our tankers, to the tote people that make our totes, to every single raw material supplier. And for that, we’ve been able to garner wonderful, long lasting business relationships that are probably better than the rest of the industry. THE EVANS ADHES I VE CORPORAT ION