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TriStar Plastics
When Cedrone first approached the MSBDC at Clark University in 2001, TriStar was reeling from the structural decline in the economy, issues with family succession, and an informal approach to business analysis and decision making. “I was determined not only to resolve TriStar’s financial difficulties, but to take the business to the next level of growth and performance,” emphasizes Cedrone. For starters, Rainey met with Cedrone every three weeks to help TriStar set up a budgeting and financial measurement system. “Thanks to John, I can now anticipate and track expenditures and revenues on Excel spread sheets,” notes Cedrone. Next on the agenda, Rainey and a team of MBA students from Clark helped Cedrone to creatine a marketing plan for the firm. “The marketing plan made us think more systematically about trends in the industry and things like territory and product mix,” explains Cedrone, who plans to open his firm’s third distribution facility by the end of the year. (TriStar currently does all of its manufacturing in Shrewsbury and has distribution centers in Charlotte, North Carolina and Yorba Linda, California.) A semester later, a second MSBDC/Clark University MBA team
began interactions with Cedrone and his firm to help TriStar build its first
formal business plan. The plan, which integrated TriStar’s goals and operations
with financial scenarios over a multi-year time horizon, helped Cedrone to think
more precisely about his business and its growth. It also helped him to secure
$5 million in loans to recapitalize his business and to purchase TriStar’s
building and property in Shrewsbury from a trust controlled by his family. With
greater control over his firm’s destiny and first rate systems in place, Cedrone
has ample grounds for optimism: “I am convinced that we can become an awesome
company. John and the MSBDC have been critical to our developing success story.
They are a hidden treasure for the state’s small businesses. They are truly
there to serve.”
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“Before John Rainey and the MSBDC helped us to implement
financial models of our business, we used to make decisions around the kitchen
table,” recalls Richard Cedrone (right), CEO and owner of TriStar Plastics in
Shrewsbury. “Think of us as a high-tech lumber yard for plastics,” quips Cedrone,
who founded the business with family members in 1982. The company offers a wide
range of plastic stock shapes, custom machining and fabricating,
self-lubricating bearings, composite manufacturing, and design and engineering
know-how. Its eight engineers add value by developing design-engineering
solutions in crafting products to customers’ specific needs.