MILTON -- Bill Blenko walked into the office, smiled big and immediately felt the warmth and love of the family business.
"Good morning Mr. B," said assistant marketing director Katie Garrison, addressing Blenko, who was president of Blenko Glass Co. from 1969 until 1996.
Blenko, who will be 87 this year, still comes in every day to make sure everything is OK at his family-owned-operated hand-blown glass factory that has been in Milton since 1921.
In spite of it all (high natural gas prices, foreign competition and aging infrastructure -- just to name three business burdens), Blenko is battling. It is OK.
Armed with a new blend of family guidance, knowledge and money, boosted with the influx of some twentysomething young bloods, Blenko is in the midst of some projects, changes and upgrades as vibrant as a batch of its new colors: pink ice, sunshine, tangerine and electric blue.
Just a few of the new or invigorated projects include: hiring Arlon Bayliss as the main designer, launching a new collegiate line this spring; an overhaul of the Blenko Visitor Center; a small, but steady stream of new interns and employees coming from Marshall University; and a resurrection of the company's antique glass division.
All the changes have come as Blenko has restructured and shifted. The family has brought on board Bill's cousin, Walter Blenko, his nephew, Don, and former Huntington city manager Gene Weekley to keep one of West Virginia's last hand-blown glass factories alive.
West Virginia once boasted 500 glass factories, but now Blenko and Fenton Glass near Parkersburg remain as the state's two big glass manufacturers.
Both have been whittled down, restructured and battle daily to stay afloat in today's trend of glass being made by only a few American factories, and most just small one-artist, art-glass operations.
"I think where the company is headed now is that there's a lot of young blood put into it," said Garrison, the assistant marketing director who graduated from Marshall in December 2007. "It's not that the older workers have went away, but it's a collaboration now."
That team work seems to be paying off.
Here's a look at just some of the ongoing projects and changes at Blenko.
Blenko goes to college
This spring, Blenko is vigorously marketing and making its new collegiate line of hand-blown glass products.
In December 2006, Blenko began the first sale of its Marshall and West Virginia University products.
Blenko made 350 pieces that sold out in less than 30 minutes, even though folks could only buy one piece of glass each.
That flipped a light for the company, and it is now making collegiate stamped water bottles (great for Sangria wine), etched book ends and decorator plates.
New universities signed on include the University of North Carolina, The University of Tennessee, The University of Pittsburgh, The University of Kentucky, The University of South Florida, The Air Force Academy and Clemson University.
Garrison said it's a new movement that is a lot of fun and that provides a new younger and more male market for Blenko Glass.
"We like to support the universities locally and in the region, and where glassware works is that it is sometimes hard to find a gift for the high-end sports fan," Garrison said. "It just recently happened, so we're trying to get it done by May in time for graduation. If not then, at least by summer before the football season."
That project is indicative of Blenko's new outreach for business.
"It's all about where can we try and fit in today's market with the overseas competition," Garrison said. "The big thing is always the cost of producing it in America."
We are Blenko
General manager Gene Weekley has been active in building a bridge to Marshall University and WVU.
Currently, two former interns are now working at Blenko. Garrison, who was a marketing major, came on in August 2006 and Trista Davis started at Blenko in February.
Currently, Blenko employs three more interns as graphic designers, and Blenko has done projects with a team of engineers from WVU as well as gotten Web site and other work from the area's college students.
"It's been a nice connection and an open communication that has been established between Blenko and Marshall University," Garrison said. "The thing we are fighting right now is that a lot of people, away from the immediate area, think we went out of business. We are still in business and building that national market."
Blenko on air, signing on
When it comes to building that national market and spreading the good word, Blenko has a full-court press of sorts on to reintroduce Blenko around the globe.
Richard Blenko, who formerly had to oversee all of the operations, is now focusing on marketing Blenko through personal appearances on the very popular Blenko fund drives for PBS.
On air in Vegas PBS in March, Blenko has been crisscrossing the country, doing signings and showing the latest Blenko documentary, "Blenko: The Spirit of America Stained Glass."
The fourth generation of Blenkos in the family business, Richard is keeping the name of Blenko alive in the thoughts of millions.
Blenko, who has also been on CNN, Fox Television and has been the topic of many national print articles, has been successful as the company has increased PR presence with that personal touch bolstered by an invigorated Web site.
Just a few weeks ago, "The Rachael Ray Show," and its designer (and University of Charleston interior design grad) Kristan Cunningham, of "Design on a Dime," featured Blenko Glass as a February favorite.
To give some props back to the show, Blenko gave away its classic water bottles to all of the audience members.
Blenko also has a spread in the March issue of "Style Century" magazine about Blenko Glass, "European quality in the hills of West Virginia."
The buzz building is paying off.
"We are getting calls from the big department stores," Garrison said. "That is significant for us. We just sent off samples to Neiman Marcus. We used to be that household name and we've got to get that again."
Pricing to the market
One thing Blenko had to do was raise the price of its products slightly, something that had not been done in the 1990s and into the 2000s, Garrison said.
"We've had increases in costs in natural gas, in materials, in transportation and we never countered that," Garrison said. "We've made changes to how things are priced and presented. Prices shouldn't have to go up for a while, now we are just steady trying to match the market."
The company also has hired Trista Davis to do cost-analysis, factoring exactly how much each batch and color and style of glass costs to make, and pricing it accordingly.
Blenko by design
If anything has always set Blenko apart, it's been that history of vibrant colors crafted into glass designed by a long string of renowned designers that started in the late 1940s with the late Winslow Anderson, who died in December.
That history has been shaped by great designs from such artists as Wayne Husted, Joel Myers, John Nickerson, Hank Adams, Don Shepherd and Matthew Carter.
Last year, the company brought on board Arlon Bayliss and the Bayliss Design Team, which designed the new 2007-2008 lines of Bravo! Strata and Victoria.
In addition to the new lines, Bayliss also has designed such limited edition pieces as the Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic trophies that were designed by Bayliss and Mary Jo Andersen and made by the glass craftsmen Randy Rider and Perry Bays from Blenko along with metal sculptors from Anderson Welding.
"Basically, we've got a designer now," Garrison said. "Arlon is now the sole designer and he brings a lot to the table. He is the designer who is going to move us more into interior design while keeping our commercial identity."
Tammy Kosla, president of the Blenko Collectors Society, said getting a fresh designer on board was an important step for the company.
"The Bayliss design team is really talented and Blenko needs that," Kosla said. "They needed new designs and they have the colors. That is the only way the company is going to stay alive and be in competition with all the foreign imports."
Garrison said those vibrant new colors are no accident. Blenko got the new color trends from Pantone, which forecasts what colors will be hot in the next year.
Using that forecast, Blenko went bold with such new colors as Tangerine, and Electric Blue, one of the hottest colors out in cars and other products.
"We felt like with everyone into DIY (do it yourself) that it would be kind of nice for us to match," Garrison said. "It makes it easier if someone comes and goes 'Oh yeah, I know exactly where I'm going to put that.'"
A couple months back, Kosla said the colors reflect some of the most vibrant Blenko colors.
"The colors are beautiful, like Dreamsicle is very close to the original tangerine from the 1950s," Kosla said. "In fact we're featuring Dreamsicle in the Blowpipe (the Collectors' newsletter)."
Visitor Center makeover
Even with all of those new designs and products, Blenko is not just hogging the shelves for themselves.
In fact, Rodney Wade, the shipping supervisor who's been at Blenko for 15 years, and the veteran staff, have done a makeover of the center.
They've added a wide range of complementary products (such as snacks, candles and other hand crafts) from other West Virginia artisans as well as other glassmakers, including Ron Hinkle.
"Part of what we do at the center is to ask customers to support American-made products," Garrison said. "We took a step back and said we weren't doing that like we should, so we've taken on other West Virginia-made projects and American-made products. It's sort of an exchange program and we want the Visitor Center to be an experience. If they don't get that glassware elsewhere, they can get it here."
Blenko is also putting out a lot more holiday-type items such as the recent "Conversation Hearts" and now the Easter Bunnies colorfully dotted glass made by the Frit-rolled process.
"We're trying to appeal to the younger audience for seasonal decorations," Garrison said. "It's that homemade gift that will last forever."
Garrison said that turn to be more customer-friendly is also on Blenko's web site, which has really been souped up in the past few years with video explaining the process of making hand-blown glass, lots of photo galleries, history, info about the veteran workers and lots of Web deals as well.
"We've seen a significant increase in sales from the Web," Garrison said. "It's doing well and we're reaching into a entirely new market on the Web."
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