Longtime Signmaker Advises Flexibility to Change

John Borell, former owner of Steel Art Co. (Norwood, MA), turned 75 in early August. He started working for Steel Art at a young age under the tutelage of his father Norbert, a Holocaust survivor who founded the company in 1952, after he and his wife emigrated to the US in 1948. Borell’s daughter and current owner Ashley Borell, who was also one of our 2024 Women in Signs Awards winners, contacted us to help share his story and wisdom after 55 years in the business.

The following interview has been edited for length.

How did you enter the sign industry?

John Borell: When I was a little kid, my father used to take me into his sign company, just to get me out of my mother’s hair for a day. I learned how to do basic shaping, soldering, cutting of fabricated stainless steel letters. I was broken into the industry at a very early age, and learned how to do a lot of the manufacturing and construction of the various products. I did that for a little while. I actually helped out the installer when I got a little older and was able to climb ladders.

When I went to college, I was actually coming home on weekends quite often to help out in manufacturing and installation. The day I graduated was a Sunday. On Monday I started my full-time career, and here I am talking to you 50 years later. I kind of joke with people that I retired a number of years ago, and I’ve cut my hours down to 12 a day and I don’t work on Saturday anymore.

55 years have been a long time. What has that looked like for you?

Borell: This is our third building. We’ve gone from six employees to 150, and from about 1,500 sq. ft. to about 50,000 sq. ft. on three acres. We were bulging at the seams, and we moved all of our office staff into the building next door to gain more manufacturing space. We’re planning in the future to probably lease about 10,000 sq. ft. for more manufacturing.

I stepped back [from running the company] a number of years ago. My daughter Ashley now owns the company along with her husband who is the director of sales. They’re actually running the company and doing a number of tasks in the background, but I’m not performing the exact same operations as I was.

What do you say would be the things you enjoy most about the sign industry?

Borell: Everything. I love working with people. I love the challenge of running 600 jobs on our shop floor every week. I guess it gives me great personal satisfaction to be able to manufacture quality products and ship [them] on time. We’re also a very forward-looking company; we are constantly developing new products. We have an innovation team of people that work together, creating new products that the sign industry and the end users would like to have, instead of the same old boring stuff that’s been around for 50 years.

Those few things really fuel me. I get up early in the morning and I work out, and I’m here in the office at about 5:20 in the morning and stay here until about 5:20 in the evening, so I get my 12 hours in. The days go by very quickly.

Photo provided by Eric Applebaum.

Advertisement

During your time in the sign industry, what changes have you seen?

Borell: The competition has changed, the number of companies that we have been competing against [has also] changed. In the beginning we were dealing direct sales with the end users for the first few years. When I got out of college, my father owned the company. Unfortunately my father passed away a couple years after I got out of college. I was involved with the sign company lock, stock and barrel two years out of college … that’s kind of young to be running your own company.

Slowly but surely we were dealing with other sign companies locally, and then we spread out to New England then to the rest of the country. We were even dealing in Canada, and at some point dealing in Mexico and even abroad. But things changed with money rates and certain political changes were made, so now we’re pretty much confined to the United States.

Have there been any moments in your career when you feel like there’s something you’re frustrated with, or something you really want to change but the change that you wanted to see has not come yet?

Borell: Well, everybody knows that change is very difficult to deal with. Whether you’re dealing with change that is in yourself or change that affects other people, that’s very difficult to step forward and leave the past behind and change the ways that you do things and the ways other people do things. I was faced with that on a regular basis — not only the sign industry change and the demands of the customer change. Even our competitors can come out with different products, different delivery timing, different pricing, different ways to conduct their business. We have to step up to the plate and either do the same or do better.

Every single day of my life here, I was faced with some frustrations, whether it was quality issues or delivery timing issues, or dealing with broken down machinery, or some political issues and the government that we have to conform with. Those are all things that an owner, a manager has to deal with on a regular basis. […] If you’re dealing with 150 other people and you’re trying to get them to think a little differently or do things a little differently, and they don’t want to, they can’t see the reason why, you have to look at it from their point of view and get them to think a little differently. That’s very challenging.

But Ashley has changed the culture in the company and we do more teamwork now, function more as a team now than we did in years past. I think it’s very important, not only for the company but the type of people, generations of people change. They have different expectations, so if you want to keep all your people and keep them happy, changing the way that you think the company needs to change, then you have to behave a little differently. She has managed to do that.

Is there any point when you wished you could have done something differently?

Borell: In the sign business I’m always thinking I could have done something differently. If you’re not thinking along those lines, if you’re not making improvements and changes in the way you’re currently doing things, I don’t think you’re making the advancements that are necessary to keep your company vibrant and in the lead. There are certainly larger sign companies than we are, and that’s fine, that’s a metric. But to keep the company and keep all the people excited and full of energy and be creative and always making improvements and doing things differently, I think that the management, not just me but other people in management, we are responsible for firing up everybody in the plant on a daily basis. You can’t sit back and keep the status quo. You have to keep moving forward. That’s what we like to do here.

Photo provided by Eric Applebaum.

What do you look forward to in the near future, both for yourself and the company, and for the sign industry?

Borell: On a personal basis I really enjoy what I’m doing. I stepped back a little bit, and I’m spending more time with the innovation team. We’re developing more and more products that help us grow, that fulfill needs of customers and their customers — that’s very satisfying to me. It’s exciting to our team of innovators because they really see the fruits of their labors. We develop a new product, we market it and advertise it, and we make our first sales — everybody here gets very excited because months and months of work and research and R&D are now paying off. The company’s growing, they know they ultimately will benefit from that. We always do share if our company grows, especially as a result of people’s hard work and innovations — we do share that with other people.

Do you have any other tips or advice that you want to share with owners and managers?

Borell: I’m of the generation that likes to put their nose to the grindstone, that likes to work and really immerses themselves into work. I work 12 hours a day; a lot of people don’t do that. A lot of people realize there are other things in life besides working. At first I didn’t really appreciate that because I was not raised that way. I was raised by European parents; they were somewhat strict and very focused on hard work. I’m not one that thinks about vacations every day — my idea of vacation is coming here. That’s why I feel like I’m on vacation. I tell that to a lot of people and they look at me like I’m crazy, but I really do feel that. When I’m here in the office 12 hours a day, I feel I’m on vacation 12 hours a day. But other generations don’t have that feeling and I respect that, and I’m finally beginning to understand that.

And then there is the digital age. When I grew up, we still had crank telephones and there were no computers, no cellphones and nothing digital. It was all done manually and I’m dealing with people who grew up with computers, cellphones, Facebook and websites — none of that existed when I grew up. It’s a different mindset. I had to adapt to that because I didn’t want to alienate other generations that don’t understand my generation. There will be generations, hopefully, in my future that are even above and beyond the generation that is here now, and [the generation here now] too will have to adapt.

I’d like to be able to eventually leave here; I hope some people feel that way. They still appreciate their vacation, but they look forward to coming here in the morning. […] They’re not going to feel like me, but I want them to feel like — don’t hit the snooze button, look forward to getting here because of the people you’re working with and the work that you’re doing, know that you’re going to be listened to, and things might actually be done or changed or improved because of a suggestion that you’ve made. I think that’s really important.

Is there anything else on your mind that you’d like to share?

Borell: I think that sign people are a different breed. I’ve met many, many sign people in my time, and we’re all really committed and dedicated, especially after we’ve been in for a few years. Most sign people that own companies, that are managers, really love the business, probably for the exact same reasons that I do. It’s just very satisfying, very challenging, very fulfilling. I never thought about doing anything else. The only thing that I did differently was when I was a kid. Once I got into the sign industry, I stayed in the sign industry and never thought about leaving it. 55 years later, here I am.

Photo provided by Eric Applebaum.