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August 19, 2004

Roxbury Technology opens new manufacturing plant

Jeremy Schwab

It all began with a game of golf. Entrepreneur Archie Williams teed off alongside other business types at the Black, White and Green Golf Tournament at Franklin Park in 1999 the pilot of a small, 15-year-old technology company with little hope for rapid expansion.

By the end of the final hole, however, Williams was deep in discussion with fellow golfer Tom Stemberg, the founder of office-supply giant Staples, Inc., about the prospect of doing business together.

Williams and Stemberg soon formed a partnership that brought Roxbury Technology Corporation’s annual sales up eight-fold, as RTC began supplying re-manufactured toner cartridges to Staples.

Last week, elected officials and members of the business community gathered at RTC’s Jamaica Plain headquarters to celebrate the grand opening of RTC’s latest venture — a toner cartridge re-manufacturing facility.

The facility will again supply cartridges to Staples as well as other businesses. But this time, instead of acting as a middleman selling products made by other companies, RTC will make the cartridges themselves.

“Distribution alone does not create many jobs, and Archie wanted to bring jobs to this community,” said Williams’ daughter Beth, who became president of the company after her father’s death last year. “So Archie wanted to bring manufacturing to the community.”

After advertising their company’s 10 new job positions in the Banner and other community newspapers, RTC staff received over 200 applications.

In an era when manufacturing jobs are being steadily moved overseas by corporations seeking cheaper labor, competition is fierce for new jobs that are created in the United States.

RTC plans to produce 100,000 laser toner cartridges in the first year at its 12,600 square-foot facility on Washington Street. If all goes well, company heads predict their workforce will be up to 75 people by 2007.

“This was a win-win-win,” said Stemberg. “You take old toner cartridges that would have been thrown away, creating solid waste, and you recycle them. You create minority business in a minority neighborhood. And we are saving our customers money by selling them re-manufactured cartridges that sell for less than the original.”

Stemberg attributed the success of the partnership between Staples and RTC to good old-fashioned networking.

“Our success here is primarily a result of the Black White and Green tournament and [tournament founders] Black and White Boston Coming Together,” said Stemberg. “It becomes a business relationship as opposed to someone simply sitting across the desk. And let’s face it, that is how white people have been doing business for a long time — I went to school with this guy or whatever, and we do business. If black people could get in on more of that, it would be a level playing field.”

While RTC President Beth Williams faces many challenges ahead, she has already cleared the biggest hurdle — getting the plant up and running.

Williams negotiated a lease with the Pine Street Inn, which owns the plant, and secured financing for the plant from Sovereign Bank. She also had to convince companies to do business with RTC.

“The biggest challenge was to learn the business and establish new relationships with customers,” said Williams, who left her post as director of business diversity for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to become RTC president. “[My father’s death] was very difficult. But to me this was very helpful to delve right into business. I didn’t have a lot of time to grieve. I had too much to do.”

 

 

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