It makes sense that things have moved so fast for Jay Stolfi: his products power renowned speedsters made by Ferrari and Maserati.
The UConn grad grew up in a manufacturing family. His folks own Johnstone Co., a metal fabricating company based in North Haven. He grew up in engineering, sales and manufacturing and thought he had the experience to cut out on his own in 2001 and buy Rose Mill Co., an established East Hartford manufacturing business that he felt had potential but lacked the right kind of management.
Later this month, when Rose Mill relocates to a small industrial park in West Hartford — doubling its size in the process — it will illustrate how far Stolfi has taken the business — and how the topsy-turvy world of outsourcing can actually be a boon for some small manufacturers.
Rose Mill is a manufacturing company with a unique worldwide niche. It buys minerals directly from mines and then processes them into items commonly used to make a variety of things around the house and shop. Its specialty is grinding Borate- and Molybdenum-based minerals, which are used as flame retardants and lubricants in a number of industrial purposes. Rose Mill buys the minerals directly from mines. They arrive at the factory resembling a coarse sea salt but go out the door looking more like baby powder.
When Stolfi bought the company, most of its business was concentrated on selling additives to futon makers that would make their mattresses less flammable. But he soon added a range of potential markets. He found customers who could use the product in regular mattresses, automobile firewalls, sheetrock coating and the plastics used to wrap electrical wire. A supplier for Maserati and Ferrari uses Rose Mill’s products to build devices for the sought-after sports cars.
Stolfi even became a board member for the National Cotton Batting Association, a trade group comprised of companies that make the cotton material used in mattresses and home furniture. In that position, he helped rewrite the federal and California standards for mattress flammability.
Last month, Stolfi bought a 20,000-square foot factory in a makeshift industrial park on Brook Street that formerly housed Cobra Pipe & Supply, a plumbing products maker. Rose has six employees and less than $10 million in annual sales.
But because Rose Mill processes a difficult-to-make-and-find additive, its business has expanded even as major companies move manufacturing overseas. “We are the ‘in-between guy’ and actually benefit when someone moves to China. That’s why we’re growing,” Stolfi said. Rose Mill’s current list of clients includes General Motors, Ford, Dow Chemical and some of the larger aerospace firms.
The Brook Street location will also give him some new neighbors, more versed in manufacturing. Among them, Danaher Tool Group/Holo-Chrome and The Bland Co., both of which make fasteners and related products.
A town is never happy to see a business go, but don’t necessarily weep for East Hartford. Just as Rose Mill departs for West Hartford, another business celebrates its move into East Hartford: Giftcorp., which makes and distributes gift baskets and other promotional items for corporate and retail clients.
It just recently completed its move into Prestige Park — an industrial park in the Northeast part of town, home to a number of manufacturers — where it expanded into 50,000 square feet of space.
As one comes in, one comes out.
Kenneth J. St. Onge is managing editor of the Hartford Business Journal.
