Marlin Steel Recognized by the Daily Record with an Award

September 9, 2014 | Steel Wire Products

TDRFor over a century, The Daily Record has been a trusted source of legal and business information for readers throughout Maryland. Each year, this business news publication hosts several awards events to honor notable citizens of the state of Maryland. This year, Marlin Steel has earned recognition for having one of Maryland’s most admired CEOs. 

How did Marlin earn this distinction? There are a few criteria which The Daily Record’s independent panel of judges will examine when selecting candidates for the award, including:

Leadership and Vision

When considering candidates for an award for being a leader, leadership-related skills such as motivating others and helping them develop are an enormous part of the evaluation. Shortly after taking over the company, Marlin Steel’s CEO was faced with a new challenge: a flood of cheap commodity baskets from foreign competitors that were being offered for less than what it would cost Marlin for the metal.

Thankfully, Marlin Steel’s new leadership was able to adapt quickly, changing the company’s focus from small commodity baskets to precision-engineered metal forms for clients such as Toyota, Boeing, Pfizer, and other industry leaders with exacting needs. Thanks to extensive investments in factory automation, Marlin Steel’s engineering team can craft thousands of custom metal forms each day, with each part meeting millimeter and even micrometer-tight tolerances that simply can’t be matched efficiently with manual labor.

Competitiveness and Innovation

Making the switch in production philosophy opened up new markets for Marlin, proving the adaptability of the company’s leadership. This new emphasis on automation also helped Marlin shine in the competitiveness department.

Beyond the investments in automation were the investments in developing the skills of the people who work at Marlin Steel. Employees are encouraged to develop new skills and train for the use of multiple machines. With a job skills matrix on display, every employee knows what their opportunities are for expanding their knowledge (and their pay as well). This in turn allows Marlin Steel’s managers to know who can do what and to encourage skills redundancy so that the absence of any one employee won’t cripple the company.

Employees are motivated to hit higher production goals through a special bonus program. If employees hit an aggressive production goal, they get a bonus on their next pay check. On average, Marlin Steel employees will earn a bonus check 14 times out of 26 pay periods. The production goals are all achievable, but not too easy.

These programs, and others like them, encourage Marlin Steel engineers to continuously innovate and find ways to improve production.

On top of that, Marlin Steel, as a company, is dedicated to safety in the workplace. Since adopting automated manufacturing techniques, the occurrence of on the job injuries has gone down immensely. In fact, the Marlin Steel production floor has gone more than 2,000 days without a serious workplace injury. By being safe, Marlin Steel can keep production going at full capacity, since there are no production line shutdowns from safety incidents.

Financial Performance and Growth


Since 1998, Marlin Steel has grown to be seven times as large as it originally was when Drew Greenblatt first bought the company. In that time, Marlin has been recognized in the Inc. 5000 list for “fastest growing companies” in 2012 and 2013, among other honors.

This growth has shown how encouraging skills growth among employees and providing them with the tools that they need to be successful can make a measurable impact on business. Here at Marlin Steel, we’re all proud to be able to provide every client with quality, engineered quick, and the results have been fantastic.

Join Marlin Steel on Thursday, September 18 for the awards ceremony.


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