Re: 2008 Emerald Awards

With only 10 employees, Gibson Holders is a very small Eugene employer, but uses best efforts in its goal toward increased sustainability, innovation and community outreach.

In 2005, Gibson Holders established an e-commerce website to assist customers in making remote purchases, thereby eliminating the need to drive to the showroom to make a purchase.  In 2007, Gibson Holders rolled out a streamlined commerce website that is user friendly for retail, wholesale and distributor accounts.  We are able to offer our local, domestic and international customers an expanded variety of goods and services and have made these products accessible around the world.  The website has the ability to allow customers to blind label drop ship to any destination using either standard shipping or put in their own shipping account numbers in.  The customer can even upload their own purchase order if they have already created the order on their own software.  All of the website was built and marketed through locally owned companies.  

Gibson Holders has changed its manufacturing processes to incorporate more sustainable practices.  We are brining our vendors and suppliers closer to home to reduce the carbon footprint associated with transporting goods cross-country.  Most of our suppliers are now in the Pacific Northwest, and many of them are within the Eugene-Springfield community.  

Gibson Holders is in the process of installing apparatuses that will increase the energy efficiency in our building.  These range from high efficiency lighting to vinyl curtains to keep the heat/cold out from the building while our shipping bay door is open.  We have individual electric water heaters at each sink, thereby reducing the amount of energy used to heat the tap water.

Gibson Holders employees truly believe in recycling and re-use.  We purchase our plastic coating in recyclable fiber drums and recyclable cardboard totes, which leaves little waste after the materials are used in the production process.  We recycle our scrap steel and exhausted equipment, and often work with local artisans and gardeners who use our coiled steel remnants for art, community projects and plantings.  Employees bring in used boxes and packaging materials (tissue paper, packing peanuts, etc.) from shipments that they received at home, and Gibson Holders reuses those items to package Gibson Holders’ products for shipments.

Gibson Holders has consolidated its paper box purchases and is looking at ways to offer corn oil/recyclable plastic packaging for its retail sales.  

Gibson Holders employees enjoy giving back to our community.  In October 2007, Gibson Holders sponsored a team to walk in the American Diabetes Association’s Step-Out event, and will do so again this year.  We advertise, recruit and hire locally to provide jobs to individuals that reside in the community in which our business is based.  Recently, we donated to the Science Factory to assist in upgrading the planetarium audio/visual equipment.

We have had many offers over the years to move our manufacturing base out of state and even off-shore, but have resisted the pulls and pushes to do so.  The decision to stay local can be economically difficult, however the employees of Gibson Holders pride themselves on producing quality, locally made products for our local community and beyond.  Although we are but a small part of our local economy, our goal is to give back to our community in a big way.  Through recycling, reuse, sustainability, volunteerism, hiring local employees and working with local businesses we hope to improve the lives of our fellow citizens and contribute to fostering the growth and success of our community.

For any additional questions, please contact Randy King at 1-541-342-7265 or rsk@gibsonholders.com.