158 | Business World Magazine |
March 2014
ber 2012, though the transaction was con-
tingent on the business retaining its name
and branding, as well as a guarantee of job
security for all existing employees.
These days, it employs a staff of 50 across
eight locations – seven inOhio, one in Penn-
sylvania – that include the corporate head-
quarters in Cleveland and a series of similar,
smaller entities whose relationship Tiernay
likened to a “mother ship” and its “micro-
cosm branches.”
If you hadn’t read about the company’s
sale, Tiernay says, you’d never know it oc-
curred.
“The business philosophy of Singer Equi-
ties is that they’re a company that acquires
value-added distributors in the industrial
rubber business and their preference and ac-
quisition strategy is to buy companies well-
managed, financially strong companies,” he
says. “So the only two things that changed
since the acquisition have been the name of
our bank and improvement in our 401K.
“They leave everything else in place.”
In addition to the customer-centric ap-
proach and product knowledge that is fun-
damental to many family owned entities,
Summers is also an ISO 9001:2008 com-
