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Although we are celebrating over 45 years in business, our founder's philosophy is still followed today. John Salmon was a leading advocate in the 1960’s of taking care of the customer in every way possible. Though unlike most who followed with "The customer is #1" slogans, he recognized that it was the employees who were going to do the job. He states, "The Company will be operated in the best interests of the employees". The infamous "bottom line" was just “oxygen” to this man. His philosophy has unquestionably led to our success as a low-turnover, non-union customer servant. It turns out that taking care of the employees, who in turn take care of customers, is a highly profitable way to run a business. Do you think John Salmon knew this in 1961? We didn’t, until we asked him to write a founder's statement in 1986:
March 26, 1986
Profits are the company's oxygen, but not the sole reason for its existence. We, the stockholders and employees of Aluma-Form hopefully exist to make a contribution to something other than our own pockets.
As a major strategy for success, the company will be operated in the best interests of the employees. In doing so, it will hopefully provide an atmosphere for each individual to grow professionally, materially and spiritually to their highest potential. Ideally, our employees will represent a microcosm of the local community.
Our company's first product was the ALUMA-FORM® platform. It was created for the electrical utility industry and was unique in that it offered utilities a product superior to what they were using. Next came the cluster mount, which led to our being known as the company with, "Ideas in Aluminum for Electric Utilities". In addition, the apitong wood business was growing.
Such momentum prompted us to form a "Futures Committee" to answer the question, "What business are we in?". The following statement was developed with company wide input. I think this speaks well of our employees and what we are trying to do here :
" The business we are in is company wide innovation of manufactured quality products for electric utilities or other markets within our distribution capabilities" .
consensus statement of Aluma-Form employees -- July 9, 1984.
John L. Salmon
Founder
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