working outdoors. From the ‘internal/employee impact’ side, we designed elements like a giant break room with large TVs, a couch and an industrial kitchen. The space is designed for employees to reserve it for personal parties if they want. And lastly, from ‘social/customer impact’ side, we focused on developing elements that would allow us to host customers and show them the process of making the covers. We have large windows from the second floor office out over the production floor. All-in- all, the decision to build was motivated more by other factors than by growth. We could have gone to multiple shifts in our last building and saved tons of money in the short term. But we believe this new building commu- nicates to employees and customers, our desire to build a company that matches our products in terms of quality and durability. But your growth is impressive nonetheless and growth has to start somewhere, right? How did it all come together for Diamondback Truck Covers? That’s true. We’re growing steadily at, I’d say, more than 23 percent every year since the recession. It all started when Matt and I were engineering students at Penn State University back in 2002. We conceived every- thing as part of an assignment. The original product, around which the company was built, was a truck cover that would seal and lock the bed of a pickup truck, while also providing
DiamondBack sets annual goals for four different bottom lines. ‘Financial’ is of course one, but we also target initia- tives under our ‘environmental bottom line,’ by which we mean both the environment in which we work as well as our impact. We also set goals for ‘internal/employee impact’ and ‘social/customer impact.’ The new facility was motivat- ed by goals in all four of these categories. “The decision to build our own facility was partially motivated by growth and partially motivated by our desire to provide our employees with a completely different work environment experience.” Financially speaking, we simply needed more efficiency and capacity. We’ve been on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies for the past five years and we needed the ability to ship more product in shorter time frames. Environmentally, we wanted to completely change the work conditions for our employees. Our old facility was dark, with low ceilings, lots of walls, and very little air flow. It felt like an old manufacturing building – because it was. Our new facility has 30-foot ceilings, windows for natural light and no partitions on the production floor. When we open up the giant roll up receiving doors, it almost feels like you’re
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AUGUST 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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