43
Glass, ceramic decorating company expands in Unity
unity
Unity Township is returning to its business roots in ceramics with the opening and expansion of CIRM Custom Decorating in the former Unity Elementary School.
The company places designs and labels on glass and ceramic items, including mugs and china for customers all over the country.
“This area used to be known for making ceramics and mugs,” Don Elzer, president of the East Palestine Chamber of Commerce. “It’s nice to see economic development that not’s related to shale.”
CIRM started at the location in December with about five employees while leasing the building from the former owner, Maxwell China Co. Since then, the company has expanded to include 20 employees, said Richard DeChellis, CIRM president.
DeChellis had worked for Maxwell and decided to join another company a short time before Maxwell shut down. Maxwell had some issues financially after the Danberry Mint stopped its program with the company, DeChellis said. Those issues eventually forced Maxwell to close.
“Our ownership group saw the situation and made a pitch to buy the assets,” he said. “It’s been good for us, good for the community and good for the former employees, some of whom have been able to work here.”
Tim Weigle, a Unity Township trustee, reiterated the addition of CIRM was good for the community.
“We’ll do anything we can to help you prosper and grow,” he said.
Despite operating in Unity Township for only a few months, CIRM is looking to expand, DeChellis said.
“We’ve talked to a contractor about expanding our building. We’ve looked at doing it sometime next year,” he said.
The company has 75 employees at its Toronto site, 30 to 35 at Rochester. The goal is to make the Unity Township site the same size as the one in Toronto, DeChellis said.
“We’re going to have to expand our building to do that,” he said.
One of the larger projects for CIRM is placing the design materials on the mugs made by American Mug and Stein Co. in East Liverpool for Starbucks, DeChellis said.
The company also has contracts with DC Comics, Marvel and a number of other companies to place designs on glasses, he said.
“Our other facilities are about 90 percent glass and about 10 percent ceramics,” DeChellis said. “Here we’re mostly ceramics, but we’re going to diversify by adding more glass.”
So far, the company has invested thousands of dollars to increase the site’s ability to handle more glass work, he said.
The company’s largest area of growth is doing glass work for microbreweries. These companies want glasses and growlers, larger glass containers for beer, that have their logo, DeChellis said.