4
Business View Magazine
4 Business View – October
Manufacturing
“The building of relationships has been our key to
success.”
Hunstad got his start with the Stern operation when
he was hired to do outside sales by the Stern Rubber
Company, which specialized in custom molded rubber
components. He eventually came off the road to assist
in the office with increasing demand tied to a boom
in the housing market. The company began farming
some work out to other companies, which prompted
Hunstad’s engagement with both rubber component
suppliers and the manufacturers requiring those
products.
Through the knowledge acquired from those
exposures, he spearheaded the development of Stern
Companies, an operation through which supplier and
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Stern Companies
WHAT:
Global sourcing and
manufacturing specialist in the
plastic and rubber industries
WHERE:
Baxter, Minn.
WEBSITE:
customer clients could work to source all necessary
materials. Stern has evolved into a one-stop shop for
rubber and plastic components, and Hunstad said the
business model works because of a particular lean
toward transparency in the process.
“Some may find that scary,” he said. “I think the more
open you are, and the more transparent it is, the better
it is for all involved.”
These days, if a manufacturer requires a component
and talks to a company doing compression molding,
the salesman would typically attempt to sell the
engineer on the benefits of that production system,
when in fact, an injection molded platform would be
more efficient and cost effective. Since he doesn’t have
an agenda to sell one type of production method over
another, Hunstad can meet with engineers, acquire an
understanding of the specific part they need and the
application in which it will serve, and provide several
alternatives based solely on the manufacturer’s need,
free of bias for one supplier.
“I don’t have a direct affiliation with any one supplier,
so I can give an unbiased opinion on what may work
best for the best price,” he said. “The role of Stern
Companies is to provide the means to access any
solution.”
