5 Years of Scotsman Manufacturing
If growing up in a small town in Mississippi has taught us anything, it’s that we don't just give up on things easily. There are things that can look like they’re done for, things that seem like they should be thrown away or left behind, but “With a little bit of work, a whole lot of work, with some help from friends, you can make things. You can rebuild them, you can restore things, you can redeem things.” -Josh
When we look at Scotsman Manufacturing five years later, that’s really what we see.
The factory where Scotsman began had been vacant for years. It was an old building from the 1940s that had been shuttered and had even been hit by a tornado. By most accounts, it probably should have been torn down. But instead of looking at the building for what it was, we decided to look at what it could become. So we put our energy into restoring that old building and into making something here in America, even though we knew it would be hard. We did it because we believed it mattered for our town, for our community and for the people who live here.
“You don't have to give up on something just because it looks like you should.” -Ben
In a lot of ways, the factory is simply a natural extension of what we had already been doing for years. Scotsman Manufacturing didn’t really begin five years ago. The idea started much earlier, when we were building things in a small wood shop and figuring out what it meant to make something with our own hands. Ben and Josh started out making things for homeowners and eventually began making small goods for customers in a roughly 3,000-square-foot wood shop. From there, we grew into a small corner of an 80,000-square-foot facility, and even then, we weren’t using all of it. Five years later, we’re still growing into the building.
That part of the story is pretty incredible to look back on. There are photographs from those early days that show just how different the factory looked. One of them shows Diego sanding a butcher block on what was essentially a little stand built just big enough to hold the piece he was working on. There was a pile of blocks waiting nearby, and the whole operation looked a lot different than the wood manufacturing facility that exists there today. The products have changed and the systems have been refined, but so much of the heart of the work is still the same.
Today, we make brand-new countertops, butcher blocks and other wood products in that old factory, and they travel all over the country. There is something pretty special about that. An old building that sat empty for more for so long is now full of people making things again. And maybe that is why Scotsman feels like more than just a manufacturing company to us. It’s another example of what we’ve always believed about this place: that it is worth investing in.
That belief has always been tied to people, too. When we talk about supporting Scotsman, we aren’t just talking about supporting a company or buying a product. We’re talking about supporting the people who work here and the families who depend on those jobs. Some of the same people who were here in the beginning are still here today. People like Mario, Diego and Ronnie have watched the factory grow from those early days, and they’ve helped make it what it is now. There is something meaningful about looking back at those old photographs and realizing that so many of the same faces are still part of the story.
Creating a company that is part of our community and exists to provide for families has always been the goal. The people who support Scotsman are supporting real people who live here, raise their families here and make their homes here. Over the years, we’ve watched that support become real jobs and real livelihoods, and many of the homes you’ve seen featured through our work in Laurel have been homes of people who work with us. That is something we don’t take lightly.
Five years of Scotsman Manufacturing is a milestone inside a much bigger story. We’re celebrating ten years in business and five years of making American-made goods, but what we’re really celebrating is what those years have meant for our people and our place. We’re celebrating the opportunity to keep investing in Laurel, to keep creating jobs, to keep making things here and to keep believing that small towns like ours still have something important to offer.
“Our goal is to create a company that is a part of our community that exists to provide for our families.”- Josh
When we started Scotsman, we believed in not giving up on old things. Five years later, we’ve been reminded that we’re not the only ones who believe in that. Our employees believe in it. Our customers believe in it. Our community believes in it. So many people have played a part in bringing this old factory back to life, and because of them, it is no longer a building that people pass by and wonder what used to be there. It is a place where people come to work every day, where things are being made again and where families are being provided for.
That’s what five years of Scotsman Manufacturing means to us. It’s a reminder of where we started, how far we’ve come and why we decided to do it in the first place. It’s a story about an old building, but really, it’s a story about believing that things aren’t always as finished as they appear to be. Sometimes they just need someone willing to put in the work, bring some people alongside them and believe there is still something worth building.
