Global Fastener News

After 46 years in the fastener industry, Mary Chambers announced she is retiring.

Chambers started with Standard Hardware – a master distributor for Allen Manufacturing – in 1972 and next worked for Allen. When the Allen warehouse closed, Chambers worked in distribution for 11 years. She started repping with partners in 1975, but the oil crash “put an end to that.”  

She then took an outside sales position with Lake Erie Screw until starting her own rep agency – Isodyne Sales Inc. In 2003 Chambers and Doug Rolston merged their rep agencies, Isodyne and T.J. Teegarden Co. to form Assembly Products.

Chambers has served four terms on the Southwestern Fastener Association board and was the 2001 SFA president.

Becoming a rep was “the only way I got a decent wage,” Chambers recalled of days when there weren’t many women in the fastener industry.

When asked what the biggest change in the fastener industry during her career, Chambers told FIN that “it is a worldwide marketplace. Going global started with “good products coming from Japan,” Chambers reflected. That led to imported fasteners “dragging prices down and hurting U.S. industry.”

“It took years for good products to come from China,” she found.  

As imports increased “some American manufacturers took business for granted and their product slipped a little,” Chambers observed. “Certainly not all,” she added. “Some stayed at the pinnacle, but not many you would recognize today.”

So many U.S. fastener manufacturers are gone. “I still have so much respect for the independent company making good products and sticking it out,” Chambers told FIN. “It could not have been easy.”

Technology has changed “everything” in the industry, she acknowledged. “However, the outside sales person continues to thrive.”

Her advice for those entering the fastener industry who want to be reps eventually? “Go to work for a distributor or a manufacturer and learn the business from the bottom up. I learned in a warehouse. It was amazing, hard but amazing.”

Rolston commented that his “greatest loss, aside from missing her smiling face every day, will be in the area of operations. She knows every facet of our business, and that kind of versatility will be greatly missed.”

Chambers’ last working day will be September 14, 2018.

“I have enjoyed this industry so much, but it is time to let the young folks take over.”

Assembly Products hired Tony Gross from Greenslade & Company, Inc. last year to supplement outside sales and is now looking for someone to handle warehouse duties and customer service interaction. Assembly Products is located at 3426 Dalworth St., Arlington, TX 76011. Tel: 817 633-2212 Email: Mary@AssemblyProducts.biz Web: AssemblyProducts.biz