Nalge Nunc Int’l expects
more growth in sales, local jobs

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Nalge Nunc International Inc. has added 100 jobs locally since the beginning of last year, and plans more hiring as it blends the operations of two acquisitions into its Penfield plant and headquarters.
The company also expects to top $250 million in sales this year, up from $230 million last year and $212 million in 1997. The Penfield operation generated half of last year’s revenues.
Nalge intends to continue its aggressive acquisition strategy, President Verner Andersen said. It has purchased more acreage on both sides of Irondequoit Creek for future expansion at its Penfield site behind the McDonald’s Family Restaurant on Panorama Trail.
The company–which plans to celebrate a half-century of growth on June 5–ranked 27th on the Rochester Business Journal list of private-sector employers published in April. Worldwide, it employs more than 1,600 people.
Also next month, Nalge plans to relaunch a 15-year-old advertising campaign that made Nalgene the premier plastics brand in the scientific laboratory marketplace.
“Break the glass habit” will start appearing in ads, an attempt to remind customers that Nalge strives to be the first to introduce new plastic laboratory products–and now products for the biotechnology sector.
In the past year, the company has acquired and applied a new plastics blow-mold technology to its containers, making them even more reliable for use with, for example, cell cultures and liquids used in diagnoses, Andersen said. Nalge also improved its filtration devices used in cell-culture applications, he said.
The new products are the result of a $4.5 million capital investment in the local facility. The final phase of the project is scheduled for completion this year with adjustments made to integrate the production of product lines from Lida Manufacturing Corp. in St. Louis and In Vitro Scientific Products in Kenosha, Wis.
Nalge closed the St. Louis and Kenosha plants after the acquisitions. The company plans to add at least 15 more employees this year as it starts producing the syringe filters and roller bottles that the two companies made, said Martin Wheeler, director of human resources.
The investment impressed Jerrold Harris, president and CEO of VWR Scientific Products Inc. VWR is one of Nalge’s biggest distributors.
Nalge’s parent, the Milwaukee-based Sybron International Corp., reorganized its units last year and put all its scientific product divisions under one unit headed by Frank Jellinek Jr., president of its Erie Scientific Co. subsidiary. This is not the only change Harris has witnessed. Sybron went public in 1992, and acquired the Danish company, Nunc A/S, in 1995. Nalge was renamed Nalge Nunc.
Often, reorganizations mean downsizing or a halt to capital investments, Harris said. That can cripple growth in a particular market.
“That has not happened under the current Sybron management,” Harris said. “They’ve kept up (with changes in the research marketplace) very well.”
Over the years, Nalge has viewed distributors as part of its team, said David Della Penta, who left as Nalge president a year ago to become president and chief operating officer of Fisher Scientific Inc., Nalge’s largest customer.
“It’s ingrained,” Fisher said. He has not been disappointed with Nalge’s performance now that he is on the other end of the pipeline.
“Nalge has the premium plastics brand for scientific labware,” he said. “It’s automatically accepted. What has impressed me the most has been the employees, their low turnover and loyalty to the place. I’m proud to be part of that for all those years.”
Andersen, who came from the Nunc end of the 1995 merger, said the consolidation of the scientific laboratory divisions has meant leverage in contracting and a common strategic planning process. But Nalge’s day-to-day operations have not been affected.
While VWR and Fisher Scientific are two of the largest distributors of Nalge products, the largest end users include SmithKline Beecham PLC, Pfizer Inc. and E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
Throughout its 50-year history, Nalge has grown through developing first-in-industry Nalgene brand lab flasks, containers and filtration products. It has steadily grown over the years, topping $100 million in sales in 1994 and acquiring nine companies in the last six years while adding manufacturing facilities in Atlanta and Naperville, Ill.
Nalge also purchased a 75 percent ownership in Nippon InterMed K.K. in Japan to form Nalge Nunc International K.K. to further expand its international opportunities.
“It’s grown to be a significant company,” Andersen said.
Currently, 80 percent of Nalge products made in Rochester are sold domestically and 20 percent in Canada, Europe and Asia, said Jean Mucenski, vice president of finance. Because the company already has such a large share of the U.S. labware market, its greatest growth opportunities lie overseas.
Before the Asian currency crisis, Nalge was seeing double-digit growth in the region. It expects a return to that level, she said.
“Reflecting on our history,” Andersen wrote in a recent company newsletter, “I can’t help but marvel at how our company has grown from its humble beginnings into the global organization of today.”

5/28/99