The Finish Line

Stephen Walters is CEO of Progressive Coating, a Chicago-area job shop that has evolved from a thermoplastic coating specialist into a multi-process supplier supporting automotive, electrical infrastructure, and electric vehicle markets across North America.

That performance-first mindset has guided Progressive Coatings through more than four decades of operation—and through one of the most ambitious expansion efforts in the company’s history.

Founded in the early 1980s, Progressive Coatings established its reputation with fluidized-bed thermoplastic coatings, particularly nylon, PVC, and plastisol systems, used on wire forms, springs, and industrial components. Walters purchased the company in 2006 and immediately began reinvesting in infrastructure, quality systems, and technology.

“Once I took over, we rebuilt pretty much everything here,” he says. 

Visit https://progressivecoating.com.

Dallas Cooley is Chief Servant and CEO at Georgia Powder Coating in Gainesville, Georgia, a company approaching its 27th year in business and prepares for a facility expansion that will more than double its footprint.

For Georgia Powder Coating, the decision to prioritize customer experience was not based on industry precedent. In fact, there was little to draw from within manufacturing itself.

Instead, the company looked outside its own industry for inspiration.

“You can think of hotel chains like the Ritz Carlton, or even fast food now with Chick-fil-A,” Cooley says. “They just operate differently with the customer as the focus.”

Visit https://www.georgiapowdercoating.com.

Stephen Sharretts is the CEO and third-generation leader of Sharretts Plating in York, Pennsylvania, an electroplating operation that has lasted 100 years and weathered the industry’s many storms.

Founded in 1925 as Charles D. Snyder and Son, Inc., the company has evolved from a small polishing and repair shop in Harrisburg into a cutting-edge surface finishing operation serving global industries.

Sharretts Plating specializes in alloys and finishes that most finishing operations prefer to ignore for obvious reasons: the difficulty of mastering the processes, and the costs often associated with precious metals. It provides standard copper, tin, nickel, and electroless nickel finishes, and also works extensively with gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, and numerous other precious metals.

Read the article at https://finishingandcoating.com/index.php/plating/2714-doctors-orders-sharretts-plating-mastering-the-art-of-growing-finishing-business.

Natalia Stephen is owner of Compound Metal Coatings and CEO and Owner of PVD Advanced Technologies, both located in Ontario, Canada, and looks forward to her 25th anniversary in 2026.

Stephen founded CMC in 2001, after a career that took her from her birthplace in Romania to college and her first job in South Africa, where she sold chemistry supplies, and eventually to Canada, where she was on the supplier side as well.

Along the way, she has become well known for her expertise in corrosion prevention and wear-resistant coatings. She is an active member of various trade associations, including the Canadian Association of Moldmakers (CAMM), of which she recently became chairman.

Marko Duffy is Managing Director at TDF Metal Finishing in Danvers, Massachusetts. He took the job in 2021 after a lengthy career on the supplier side of the finishing business and has transformed the once family-owned company in just a little over four years.

Duffy has helped the shop, founded in 1984, become accredited by the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program and has added new finishing lines and more processes. More importantly, he won over the 30 employees by fostering a culture of accountability and appreciation.

Read the article at https://finishingandcoating.com/index.php/plating/2645-new-plating-lines-nadcap-take-tdf-metal-finishing-to-next-level

Imran Shamsi is Vice President at Premier Metal Processing in San Diego, which offers anodizing, electrolytic nickel, bright tin, chemfilm, electroless nickel, electropolish, passivation, and zinc to customers across various industries. 

The company serves customers in the aerospace and defense, medical, electronics, oil and gas, connectors, microwave, nuclear, automotive, and commercial sectors.

The diversity of business sectors among Premier Metal Processing’s customers has been a significant benefit to its growth.

“We’ve purposely — as well as by luck — diversified so that we’ve always had the benefit of working with multiple industries,” Shamsi says. “We work within the aerospace industry, which is starting to be a little bit more constrictive for us. We do work a lot with parts destined for the Department of Defense, electronics, and semiconductors.”

Visit https://finishingandcoating.com/index.php/anodizingcat/2629-long-game-helps-plater-premier-metal-processing-sustain-growth to read more about Premier Metal Processing.

Mark Morris is President of J&M Plating in Rockford, Illinois, which is a large fastener coating and small stamping operation. It has 220,000 square feet of production space, offering one-stop finishing services, and is ISO 9001:2015 quality certified. Its heat-treating and plating laboratories are ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited for mechanical testing.

J&M Plating has been one of the top zinc electroplaters since its founding in 1986, offering heat-treating, dip-spin coating, patching, and sorting as part of its plating processes.

Read the article at https://finishingandcoating.com/index.php/plating/2609-bolt-action-j-m-plating-grows-fastener-business-by-latching-on-to-core-values

John Cutchin got his start in the finishing industry at 18, when he would bronze baby shoes in his hometown in Easley, South Carolina.

Cutchin went on to start Palmetto Plating in 1964 to provide metal finishing services to the textile industries, and has enjoyed a successful career ever since.

Read more about him at https://finishingandcoating.com/index.php/plating/2612-legends-john-cutchin-palmetto-plating

Adam Thomas, Vice President of the family-owned company R.J. Thomas Manufacturing. is a Cherokee, Iowa, manufacturer of Pilot Rock park equipment that was founded in 1959.

The addition of an upgraded powder coating system has been on R.J. Thomas Manufacturing’s to-do list for some time, and especially since business has been growing for the last several years.

The company has been designing and manufacturing the Pilot Rock brand of park, street, and campsite equipment since its inception. The outdoor park equipment includes campfire rings, grills, benches, picnic tables, and trash receptacles, which are used in parks, campgrounds, or someone’s backyard.

Read more at https://finishingandcoating.com/index.php/powder-coat/2585-r-j-thomas-mfgs-new-pilot-rock-powder-coating-system-makes-finishing-a-walk-in-the-woods

Jo’Van Wiggins is the Chief Operations Officer of EMI Quality Plating in Evansville, Indiana, a 50,000-square-foot business that is central to many manufacturing operations in the U.S.

EMI specializes in silver, gold, and nickel plating; certified welding inspection; and additional specialty plating processes, including palladium, diamond coatings, low-, mid-, and high-phos nickel, as well as electroless nickel.

“We have a lot of choices and options for potential partnerships with different companies,” Wiggins says. “And we are only using about 25,000 square feet, so we're ready to expand and open up. We also have real estate around our facility, so we're able to build on and open up the capacity even more if need be.”

Founded in 2005, the company was acquired in 2016, and President Jake Stocks took ownership and rebranded it with a more modern look and vision. The list of industries they serve is as extensive as the number of processes they offer: military defense, medical, automotive, RF/microwave, laser, cellular, consumer electronics, optics, HVAC/refrigeration, computer, aerospace, and telecommunications.

Visit https://emiplating.com.