When Greg Bachmann accepted his first position at Dymax Corporation, he had no intention of staying there. It was the early 1980s, not long after his parents had founded the light-curing-technology manufacturer, and Bachmann’s responsibilities were typical of a high-school summer job: mowing the lawn, stuffing envelopes, cleaning the facilities at night. But after moving to Tennessee and managing a local maintenance company, his father, impressed with Bachmann’s management skills, invited him back to Connecticut to manage Dymax’s adhesives group. Profile spoke with Bachmann, now president and CEO of Dymax, about the company’s growth since he became president in 2005 and majority shareholder in 2010.
Dymax has grown tremendously in the last several years, especially overseas. How has the company changed since your father started it in 1980? My father was a chemist, and he started the business in a barn, mostly making adhesive products for the automobile industry. In the late 1980s, we [experienced exponential growth in] the medical-device market and, more recently, in consumer electronics. There are 9–12 bond sites on any camera module, and if you think about all the things you use that have a camera—like your cell phone, computer, and even cars—our adhesives are the most efficient and protective way to hold those components together. As those markets have expanded, so have we. We’re now a very international company with subsidiaries in Hong Kong, China, Korea, and Frankfurt, Germany.
by the numbers
3
past employers
250
employees under his wing
72%
proportion of total employees located in Torrington, CT
10%
average growth rate during Dymax’s first 10 years
18
years in the industry
20%
projection for average growth rate in the coming year
There are a lot of ways you can measure your success at Dymax. How has your leadership served the company? My skill is really just selecting the right people and putting the teams together. Our teams have done an incredible job of reaching our common goals as a company. This team-based management style has helped us grow at a rate of about 20 percent a year. Right now, our fastest growth is overseas.When I was the general manager of the equipment group, I invested a lot of money into research and development. I was able to position Dymax as the major leading supplier of UV-curing equipment in the [light-cured adhesives] industry, which gained us a significant amount of the market share. I took the equipment group from a $2 million group to a $7 million group in about four years.
You became the majority shareholder in late 2010. What’s next for Dymax? Our teams continue to do amazing work, and I’m continuing to deliver results. We’re a privately owned company, but we’ve been able to beat all the public companies we set our sales benchmarks against. Since I became president and CEO in 2005, we’ve really seen the best growth that the company has ever seen and the largest gain in stock value, plus we’ve been recognized by the federal government and have been in Inc. 5000 for four consecutive years. So, looking ahead, I’m projecting a lot more growth—at least an average of 20 percent a year, plus more expansion into overseas markets. We’re also trying to increase the sustainability of our adhesive products.
