WMIA Announces Winner Of 2005 Partner-Of-The-Year Award

Furniture World Magazine

The Woodworking Machinery Industry Association’s (WMIA) distributor members have announced the winner of WMIA’s 2005 Partner-of-the-Year Award. The announcement was made during the April 20-23 Wood Industry Conference at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort in Destin, FL. The 2005 recipient company is WMMA member Black Brothers Company, Inc., headquartered in Mendota, IL. John Henderson, chairman of WMIA’s marketing committee and vice president of Woodworker’s Emporium, a WMIA distributor member company, announced the award recipient. Matthew B. Carroll, president, CEO and fifth-generation member of the Black family to operate the company, accepted the award. Founded in 1882 in Lanark, Scotland, by five brothers and their father, the Blacks immigrated to Chicago in 1884 and reestablished what was then a building construction business. To save time and labor, they designed and built woodworking machines, high tech for their time, first a molding sander in 1889 and in 1898 a mortising machine. Both were patented and marketed to America’s young woodworking industry. In 1901 the family moved its operations to Mendota, IL, a location central to the growing concentration of furniture and woodworking factories in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. The company has continued to develop a stream of innovative machinery over the decades. Through an extensive distributor network, today it provides manufacturers worldwide with high-quality coating, gluing and laminating equipment, as single machines or systems. Its customer base for its wood product machines and systems include kitchen cabinet and countertop manufacturers; furniture, door and architectural millwork manufacturers and store fixture manufacturers. Black Brothers also has service centers in High Point, NC; Cedar Hill, TX; Warsaw, IN; and Neuwegein, The Netherlands. When announcing Black Brothers as the 2005 Partner-of-the-Year Award winner, Henderson said, “Every year since 1994, WMIA’s distributor members have nominated woodworking machinery manufacturers or importers who exemplify the true meaning of partnering with distributors. Nominees are ranked by their accomplishments in five key support areas: financial, sales and product, service and parts, marketing support and training. Marketing committee distributor members tabulate the nominations, calculate each one’s total value of the rankings, factoring in such other considerations as the number of distributor relationships. These quantitative rankings determine which machinery supplier receives that year’s WMIA Partner-of–the-Year Award.” Henderson concluded, “With its innovation in machinery design and applications, its 123-year history that parallels the growth of the woodworking industry and indeed has contributed to it, and its commitment to a partnering relationship with its distributors, Black Brothers eminently qualifies for this prestigious award.” Headquartered in Baltimore, MD, WMIA’s membership comprises companies whose primary business is providing the North American market with high-technology woodworking machinery and the most advanced software available on the worldwide market. For detailed information on WMIA members and services, inquiries can be made to its website at www.wmia.org or by e-mail at info@wmia.org, or by calling 410-931-8100, or writing to WMIA, 5014-R Campbell Blvd., Baltimore, MD 21236.