Gage Reaches a Milestone

Gage Products Company was founded in 1936, making this year our 80th year in business. This is quite an accomplishment for a business. Only those who consistently deliver quality products and services stay around as long.

When we started we were on a mission—to be the world’s preferred supplier of chemical 80 Years Logorelated products and processes. We have succeeded and today we are the world’s leading provider of closed-loop recycling and toll blending processes for automotive and general industrial paint solvents. We also supply high-performance solvent blends, test fuels, calibration fluids, paint line cleaning programs, and specialty product solutions. Our solutions provide customers with innovative and unique custom technologies to meet the specific needs of their applications.

Even though we are a chemical company, over the years we have dedicated ourselves to making a constant commitment to
sustainability and the environment. Our sustainable business practices help reduce 80 Years Image 1our carbon footprint and environmental impact. Through the use of our solvent and application solutions, we have been instrumental in helping many industries, and especially the auto industry, reduce their environmental impact as well. Uniquely designed water or solvent borne purge solutions and recovery systems maximize efficiency and minimize waste in paint line systems and equipment cleaning. We promote sustainable product alternatives and have helped industries use products and systems that are eco-friendly and offer outstanding capabilities.

The motto we have adopted “Vision, Quality, Commitment” wraps up our goals as a 80 Years Image 2company. We truly think about the overall picture of how our products impact industry, people, and the environment now and for the future (Vision). We stand behind all of our products and consistently deliver chemicals that exceed the expectations of our customers (Quality). With a dedication to outstanding customer service, we strive to form partnerships with our customers to supply them with the specific products for their needs (Commitment).

We are proud and excited to be celebrating our 80th anniversary! Reaching 80 is a milestone and as a gift to ourselves and the field, we will continue to innovate and remain active with successful industry contributions as we work towards our next 80!

Looking Forward to an Eventful 2016

Starting fresh means setting out a new list of goals to potentially improve circumstances and, at the beginning of a new year, usually comes in the form of resolutions. For us, a resolution doesn’t give our name justice because, at Gage Products, we continually work to2016 Outlook Image 2 - Feb. 2016 provide the highest quality products and services year in and year out. We call this TheGage Difference.

This summer, Gage will celebrate 80 years in business. This is quite a milestone! Started in 1935, we are still a family-owned operation that continues to serve the automotive industry as we did in the beginning. We have won numerous awards for our manufacturing excellence and operational compliance. In 2016, we will continue our tradition to innovate this year with new solvents, fuels, recycling systems, and solutions for any challenging manufacturing problems.

In the coming months we will also be redesigning our website to incorporate the most up-to-date company news, plus the addition of new content. Increasing our site information brings more value to our customer’s ability to interact with our company. We will be featuring our latest tweets, news, events, and new product developments. Be sure to check in with us often!

As we set out to take on the new year, we are looking forward to another year of exceptional commitment to environmental and community stewardship, the sustainable manufacturing of solvents, and providing solutions for manufacturers’ greatest challenges.

Happy New Year from all of us at Gage Products!

Celebrate the Opening of Gage’s New Innovation Center

At Gage, we follow some straightforward ideals: quality, reliability, innovation, customer focus, and environmental stewardship. With the opening of our new Gage Innovation Center we have put all of these concepts into overdrive to strengthen our commitment to vehicle manufacturers and the automotive and industrial suppliers we serve.

Our commitment to advancing research and development efforts for new products and Grand Opening Image Nov. 2015continued growth is evident in our new center. This multi-million dollar facility, located at our 12-acre Ferndale headquarters site, is important for many reasons: It lets us bring the Quality Control (QC) and Research & Development (R&D) departments together under the same roof for easier collaboration and in-house testing. We celebrated the official opening on Oct. 15th with community leaders, state and local officials, and, of course, all of our valued employees.

One of the most exciting aspects of this new center is the state-of-the-art laboratory outfitted with highly technical equipment. Our scientists now have access to gas chromatography and mass spectrometry equipment, both of which are critical to the multitude of tests we run. In the past, it was also time consuming to deliver reports and findings across departments — the new computerized, integrated information system allows technicians to share QC and R&D testing results much more quickly and efficiently.

This new facility also allows us to add new capabilities. We are now able to:

• Perform aromatic and detailed hydrocarbon analysis for fuels
• Determine compound identifications through use of a mass spectrometry upgrade
• Execute critical testing on up to 50 distinct fuel properties
• Increase storage capacity for customer-product test samples

As one of our missions is for continuous improvement, this new Innovation Center gives Grand Opening Image 2 Nov. 2015our QC technicians better control and focus on the 500+ tests that we run each week. Performing all the tests in our own laboratory, without needing to outsource, lets us deliver results in 1-2 days. If re-testing is necessary, it can begin right away. The benefit greatly enhances the service we provide for our customers.

This new Innovation Center is an investment in our future so that we can expand our capabilities and develop new products while continuing to offer outstanding customer service. Gage is certified for ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 and the new Gage Innovation Center laboratory is in the process of certifying to ISO 17025 standards.

To learn more about our expanded and upgraded facilities and capabilities, feel free to contact us. We’d love to share our new innovations with you!

Gage Products Company Awards Karly Wilson 2015 STEM Scholarship

STEM Scholarship WinnerGage Products Company is proud to announce that Karly Wilson, a 2015 graduate of Ferndale High School, is this year’s recipient of our 20th annual community scholarship award.

We established the scholarship fund in 1996 and have awarded the $1,000 scholarship each year to an outstanding and deserving Ferndale High School graduate. Originally awarded to students who were planning to pursue chemistry, we have broadened the requirements to any student who is planning to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). The scholarship is awarded on the basis of academic achievement and community involvement and recipients can continue to receive money for up to four years as long as they stay in a related program.

Karly had a 4.0 grade-point average her senior year and graduated Ferndale High School with a grade-point average of 3.68. Her schedule included a number of advanced and honors-level courses as well as being an Executive board member of the United Student Assembly and Class Council and was involved in the National Honor Society. In addition to her academic achievements she was a team captain of the Ferndale High School volleyball team, which won the district championship and also volunteered her time with the Salvation Army, The Red Cross, and OAA’s Charity Week. Karly also spent time working with special education students. She will attend Michigan State University in the fall and plans to pursue a career in medicine or biomedical engineering.

Gage Products Company was founded in Ferndale in 1936 with a focus on providing our customers with the best solutions for paints, solvents, and fuels. Today, our company is built on value-driven, high quality products and services. It’s grown through careful planning, forward thinking research and development, product integrity and solid customer partnerships on a global basis. To learn more about our company and our dedication to corporate citizenship, visit our website. We also post more updates on our Twitter and LinkedIn pages.

A Look at What Gage is Up to Globally

Flag_of_the_United_KingdomUK: Gage Global Service was recently awarded a significant volume of automotive purge solvent business in the northern region of the UK with full time supply commencing in July 2014. With approximate annual volume of 1.5 million liters, this represents a boost in customer confidence for Gage in the UK. The business award is based on a purge solvent supply and recovery program to be fully implemented by early 2015. The program contains a series of cost reduction measures through efficiency and equipment optimization savings. We are very proud of our record in our global locations and are committed to providing the best service and value possible for our customers.

Brazil: Gage do Brazil continues to provide its customers with our extensive range of 720px-Flag_of_Brazil.svgproducts and solutions in the Brazilian auto industry despite a recent downturn in vehicle production. We are committed to providing our current customers with the best possible service and welcome the opportunity to provide the market newcomers such as BMW, Chery, JAC and new assembly plants built by Honda and Mercedes Benz, with the same value and service we have always delivered.

800px-Flag_of_Mexico.svgMexico: Gage de México has provided an alternative means of supply and services to our customers for the past 16 years. The Mexican automotive market continues to expand with news that automakers such as Kia, Mazda, Honda, Audi, BMW, Renault, Nissan and Daimler have either begun manufacturing light vehicles in the past year or have disclosed plans to do so. With this confidence to expand as a backdrop, Gage de Mexicohas recently launched its solvent closed-loop recycling program at two key automotive plants in the region with additional plans to expand and provide the same benefits it has to other auto makers in previous years.

Launching Our Services in Portuguese, Spanish

Green GlobeWhat’s the indicator of expanding business? For Gage, it’s on our homepage.

In the top right corner of our website, you’ll notice a drop down, where you can choose to view our information in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. Having a multi-language website is important to us for a number of reasons.

The ability to connect with potential business across oceans is made easier into the digital age, but we want to be able to connect our full span capabilities and technical language with them with ease. We believe in the ability to fully explain what we offer in a person’s own native language—instead of just basic words that are easy to translate.

Our headquarters are in Ferndale, Michigan, but our business isn’t limited to city lines, state borders, or country limits—in fact, we’re continuing to expand in the global market. We’re also in the process of expanding the website to include Mandarin and German to expand our reach and offer various countries our products and services, enabling us to develop Gage’s vision, quality, and sustainability initiatives on a global stage.

There are endless benefits to growing your company, but in this case, it’s much more than that—we want to spread our ideals—we’ve previously blogged about why recycling is good for you company, but we also believe it’s good for the world. We have even bigger and better initiatives in the works to get Gage’s name and products on a global scale, so stay tuned. For more information on our company (in English, Spanish, or Portuguese), head over to our website.

The Importance of Providing Assistance to Future STEM Leaders

This year's winner, Randell Seaton, is an intern in Gage's R&D lab.

This year’s winner, Randell Seaton, is an intern in Gage’s R&D lab.

Our previous blog post highlighted our involvement in the EcoCar competition, which sponsors teams of student engineers as they design an American-made automobile with less dependence on oil and more environmental benefits. And if you haven’t seen our Facebook page, you’re missing out on photos of us at color runs, community events, and awards ceremonies. Here’s the Cliff Notes version of what Gage is all about: We love to be a part of our community and support STEM education.

A result of our activities with the chamber of commerce and community, led us to realize that we had an opportunity to do more for local students. We firmly believe that today’s students represent tomorrow’s business leaders, and we think it’s very important to support them and provide assistance, which is why we have awarded a $1,000 scholarship to a local senior high school student studying science or engineering for the past 20 years.

In 2007, we realized that four-figure sum wasn’t enough to last through an entire undergraduate career. Consequently, we opened up the opportunity to renew the scholarship, meaning each winner can claim their scholarship annually for up to five years.

While we’ve been thrilled to provide an opportunity to support the local education system and encourage careers in science and engineering, this opportunity has also provided a chance for students to intern with us and get hands-on experience in the field. We firmly believe the development of a sustainable talent pipeline is vital to Michigan’s (and Gage’s) long-term success. For more information on our company, initiatives, and products, visit our website.

The Importance of Celebrating Mathematics

Many of today’s elementary and high school students look at their mathematics and science classes as either a waste of time or irrelevant to their future lives. But as the world becomes ever more digital and opportunities in career fields such as engineering and manufacturing become more of a priority, it will be increasingly difficult to avoid these academic subjects.

It was this lack of interest by students in mathematics that prompted President Reagan to initiate the annual promotion of Mathematics Awareness. Since his term in office more than 30 years ago, the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics each April have been celebrating and bringing awareness to the study of math via the Mathematics Awareness Month. This demonstrates to students that math and the real world are more intertwined and connected than they thought.

This year’s theme was on the Mathematics of Sustainability. This year’s celebration to focused attention on the use of mathematics training to show how scientists and engineers can work via their academic training to balance the use of our natural resources with the need to conserve and preserve it. We’ve kept these notions with us even though the celebration is technically over.

In the spirit of Mathematics Awareness Month, especially with the focus on Mathematics of Sustainability, Gage thought it would be a great time to mention our support of the EcoCar2 competition. The EcoCar2 is a competitive challenge that brings students from 15 leading North American universities to retrofit a regular car and turn it into a competitive green, sustainable vehicle.

In our next blog, we will provide more details and coverage on this competition and our participation. Until then, take time to think about how much math you use on a daily basis. Besides all of the digital devices that you use daily (thanks to algebra, trig, calculus, and stats), there’s that tip you add onto a restaurant bill, the calculations to figure out whether you owe taxes to Uncle Sam, or the simple addition as you determine how many calories you just consumed. Math is truly as fundamental as reading. Celebrate it!