March 2014
| Business World Magazine | 157
on is the Findlay, Ohio market. It moved
from a 3000-square-foot building to one
that measures 4,800 square feet, and added
an outside sales person.
The company buys rubber from primary
suppliers Gates and Goodyear, cuts and fab-
ricates it at smaller lengths than those com-
panies are interested in handling and resells
it via on-site client transactions with its out-
side sales team, walk-in transactions at its
branch offices or incoming telephone inqui-
ries.
Other markets include agriculture, con-
struction, food/beverage/dairy, HVAC,
injection molding, marine, municipal/gov-
ernment, paint processing, petrochemical
processing, pharmaceutical, plastic process-
ing, primary metals, pulp/paper, transporta-
tion/bulk handling, utilities and wood pro-
cessing.
The varied approach has been fundamen-
tal since the company’s early days, which
came in 1949 when it was created by name-
sake W.H. Summers. Summers’ son, Wil-
liam, brought the company into its second
generation and was succeeded by his own
son, Michael, as generation No. 3 in 1980.
Michael Summers ran the company un-
til he was appointed mayor of nearby Lake-
wood, Ohio in 2010, a transition which led
to Tiernay’s arrival inMarch 2011. The com-
pany was sold to Singer Equities in Decem-
