"The plastics industry has been in my blood since birth," Jason Forgash says.

In 2005, he became part of the third generation at Bay Plastics Machinery, which specializes in the manufacture and sale of pelletizing equipment.

Jason's grandfather, Tony Forgash Sr., owned and operated a tool-and-die shop known as JETRO Inc. in the 1950s. Jason's father, Tony Forgash Jr., joined the company in 1961. They led the design and development of the company’s pelletizer technology. JETRO was sold to Conair in 1974; Bay Plastics Machinery was founded in 1997.

Jason Forgash has been part of the Plastics Industry Association Equipment Council since 2013 and on the operations committee for NPE since 2006. He is currently the vice chair of the operations committee.

Bay Plastics Machinery is truly a family affair. Jason’s older brother, Jeffrey, is the vice president of sales, parts and service. His brother James is vice president of sales. James’ daughter, McKenna, is on the sales team, and Jason’s son, Dakota, graduated from Alma College and joined the company in the spring, working in the accounting department.

In an interview with Bruce Geiselman, senior reporter for Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing, he discussed the history of the family business, his professional goals and business philosophy.

What has been your career path?

Forgash: After high school, I went to work for Conair JETRO Division as an inventory clerk while attending community college. My first job out of college was at State Chemical selling cleaning products.

How did you get interested in the plastics industry?

Forgash: The plastics industry has been in my blood since birth.

At 16 years old, I cleaned the machine shop at Conair JETRO after school. When I was young, I would listen to my father and grandfather talk business around the dinner table. I always knew that I wanted to enter the industry.

What was your first job in the plastics industry?

Forgash: My first job in the industry after college was in 1992 as a sales rep for Value Systems, selling products for several different auxiliary equipment suppliers. Value Systems was Roger Doherty’s sales rep agency, and he was based out of Charlottesville, Va. I worked and lived in Charlottesville near Roger, and I covered Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, selling Conair and Xaloy mostly.

What brought you to Bay Plastics Machinery, and at what position did you start?

Forgash: In 2005, I was working for UBE Machinery, selling large-tonnage injection molding machines. I had started a family and was looking for a change.

After speaking with my father, we discussed my coming to work for Bay Plastics. I started in July 2005 as a sales manager covering the Eastern U.S.

I know that Bay Plastics Machinery is a family business. What can you tell me about the history?

Forgash: In 1961, my father and grandfather developed our first strand pelletizer under the company name JETRO.

In 1974, Conair purchased JETRO and renamed it Conair JETRO Division. In 1997, Conair centralized all remote manufacturing to its facilities in Franklin, Pa. At that time, my father and a core team formed Bay Plastics Machinery.

In 1998, Bay Plastics Machinery and CF Sheer created a joint venture named Scheer-Bay. We operated as Scheer-Bay until 2008, when Scheer declared insolvency in Germany. At this time, we reverted to our original name as Bay Plastics Machinery.

Why did your family decide to focus the business on pelletizers?

Forgash: My grandfather owned and operated a tool-and-die shop in Bay City, Mich., in the late 1950s.

He was doing work for Dow Chemical, repairing their strand pelletizers, when he told them that he could build a better system. His contacts at Dow said, “Show me,” and he built his first strand pelletizer.

My father and grandfather sold their new line of strand pelletizers under the JETRO name to Dow and several other chemical companies in the Midwest until Conair purchased JETRO in 1974.

What does Bay Plastics Machinery do today, and who are your customers?

Forgash: We offer a complete line of strand pelletizers, conveyors, water baths, air knives, strand dewatering units and spare parts.

We specialize in repair and replacement of cutting rotors and feed rolls for every make and model of strand pelletizer. Our customers range from small compounding companies to large polymer plants.

What is your greatest career accomplishment?

Forgash: I have two accomplishments that mean the most to me.

The first is the ability to offer our employees a place to work that allows them to be family-focused while still providing equipment and service at a level that exceeds our customers’ expectations.

The second is how we have grown our business over the last several years. We have grown from 15 employees in one small manufacturing facility to 55 employees with three manufacturing facilities in Bay City, as well as offices in Georgia and the Netherlands for parts sales and distribution.

Bay Plastics Machinery has been a part of your family for a long time; do you plan to keep it that way?

Forgash: It’s 100 percent our intention. We strive because we’re a small, family-oriented business that allows us to be very nimble and custom design our equipment.

We answer to our customers and don’t answer to a big corporate structure, which I think gives us a lot of advantages. It allows us to be able to exceed expectations for our customer base.

We have sales reps in our organization who look at us and go: “You guys do way too much. You do too much to satisfy customers’ needs. Nobody else we deal with does it. We love that you do it, but nobody in the industry does what you guys do.”

We pride ourselves on that because the mentality is, if we take care of our customers, they’re going to take care of us. It’s been proven, and it’s very successful for us that way.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Forgash: It’s difficult having a small business right now in the U.S.

There’s lots of pressure for us to talk to larger companies interested in purchasing us, and it’s a struggle that we live with every day. Trying to maintain our unity as our own privately held company is sometimes pretty tough. There are a lot of people out there looking to gobble people up that are successful. I’ve seen it happen in the industry, and I’ve seen what happens to a lot of those companies in the industry. They lose those customer-centered focuses.

Us being lucky enough and fortunate enough to maintain that independence has really been important for our business. If we can stress anything, I would really work toward that area. Being small isn’t bad. Being small is sometimes a really good thing. It allows us to do the right thing by our customers and our employees.

We’re very flexible. If there’s a child’s play at school and you need to take time off to go see your child’s play, we want you to be with your family and enjoy that time with your kids because you don’t get it back. We all know when our kids grow up and are on their own, they’re gone, and they’re doing their own thing, and we get to go see grandkids and those type of things. Those are the things that are really important to us.