Smith & Warren, Badge Manufacturers: Interview with Made to Measure

In 1925, Mr.’s Smith and Warren founded a police equipment store around the corner from the New York City Police Department.  Mr. Smith later became a Congressman, but Mr. Warren continued with the low-key company until he retired.  Two brothers (unrelated to the original owners) bought the firm in the early ‘sixties, maintaining the site and its principal client (NYPD) with an inventory of police jackets, whistles, cap-straps and what-not, until the brothers, too, were ready to call it a day.

1981 marked the year that Julian Galperin, a successful consulting engineer in the throes of mid-life crisis, decided he wanted to be self-employed—become “master of his own destiny.”  He purchased a nearby Electro-plating company, deciding to apply his knowledge at a practical level.  Simultaneously, new federal constraints on pollution rendered the business of electrically bonding metals with coatings of gold or chrome nearly cost-prohibitive; Julian was left with his factory and his expertise—all he needed was something environmentally clean to make.

 When he discovered that Smith & Warren was for sale, Julian purchased it and combined the 2—Electro-plating/police accessories: His badge business was born.  In a week’s time, the contents of the old building in Manhattan were moved to White Plains.  The factory was kept running as it was gradually converted from “job-shop” plating for outside vendors, to in-house orders for badges, only.  New catalogues were designed, new products were introduced, old items were re-introduced, pricing was re-vamped, marketing began on a national scale.  And Helena joined Julian at the office.

A native of Yonkers, with her own parents in the fabric business, Helena grew up knowing about a family-owned enterprise, working long hard hours, and focusing on customer service.  At Columbia University, while studying for her MA in counseling, she met Julian, also a Master’s candidate but in mechanical engineering.  After their marriage, she went into the business world working with large corporations, computers, human relations—all of which would eventually prove invaluable.

By the time Julian asked her to join him at the plant, Helena had been at home for several years with their 2 children and mountains of volunteer work.  She was ready for a change, and Julian needed someone in the front office he could trust.  The two make a terrifically dynamic team.   “We are always arguing,” Julian laughs.  “Nothing is unilateral.  We are best friends, we discuss everything together all the time.”

Now 49 and general manager, Helena adds, “Julian understands the process of manufacturing.  My focus is customer service.  We don’t get in each other’s way because we do very different things.  Neither of us needs to be in charge, so we’re both in charge.”  Combining Julian’s knowledge of efficiency and technology with Helena’s skills in corporate structure and public relations, Smith & Warren has become a firm where expedience and patience, intensity and flexibility make an inseparable winning team.

Helena developed a point of focus unique to Smith & Warren.  “The badge manufacturers know each other, what each makes.   If we can’t help a customer, we refer to someone who can.  We always try to give our customers more than they ask for,” she emphasizes.  “We sell our products every day by our attitude—our customers are our allies; they sense and respond to our positive feelings about what we do, who we are.  Julian and I don’t think of the bottom line as money; we think in terms of value and quality for our customers.”

Julian reads every programming manual he can find, studies factory production, and systematically employs the most technologically advanced innovations available.  “People say factories are run by robots,” the 57 year old entrepreneur scoffs.  “That’s not true.  Robots are run by people; but people have different tasks/skills/responsibilities, now.  At any one time, we have over 4,000 different orders processing at different stages of completion--all bar coded--with our employees tracking the bar codes.”

“Most people in our business merely sell badges.  We manufacture them.  From start to finish, everything we do is under our control.   It takes others 6-8 weeks to obtain a die, deliver a badge.  We set our goal for 2 weeks.  We have a person whose specific job it is to monitor all orders—by its tenth day in production, if any single order is out of sync, he goes after it.  It isn’t that we work faster; rather, we work at a regular pace, but we hire more people.”  “The answer to our customers is always ‘yes,’” Julian offers with a twinkle of irony.  “The question is simply ‘what’s the problem?’”