NEWS/PRESS

April 2007 - 2007 ESOP Company of the Year, Carolina’s Chapter

April 2007 - Sponsorship of the MIA 2007 Advertising Awards Competition

April 2007 - New Supply and Equipment Catalog

April 2007
Salem Distributing Company Recognized
as 2007 ESOP Company of the Year, Carolina’s Chapter

Winston-Salem, NC – Salem Distributing Company, the parent company of Salem Stone, a Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based, employee owned company has been recognized as the Carolina’s Chapter 2007 ESOP Company of the Year. This annual award is sponsored by the National ESOP Association in Washington D.C. This year’s award continues to honor the success of employee owned businesses and their employee-owners whose growth and contributions exemplify the qualities and benefits of employee ownership. Winners of this year’s regional competition will vie for the national honor to be announced at the 30th Annual National ESOP Conference, May 15-16, 2007, in Washington, D.C.

Salem was founded in 1934 as the Siewer’s Sales Agency and began under its current name in 1972 following a change in ownership. Today, this 100% employee owned company is comprised of 4 distinct business units: Salem Flat Glass, Salem Vision, Salem Advanced Surfacing Materials and Salem Stone. It has successfully managed this complex relationship of industries, equipment and materials, to build a wealth of product and process knowledge unique to single company.

Only into the third year of 100% employee ownership, Salem has made great strides in a corporate restructuring initiative, which included reinventing its corporate culture to focus on empowering, inspiring and challenging its employee-owners. The bottom lines of this initiative were to better serve and grow its customer base. The results yielded an impressive 15 percent growth in the first half of 2006 that yielded Salem’s recognition as one of the Triad area’s FAST 50 a business growth competition.

Michael Keeling, President of the ESOP Association stated at the presentation, “Salem (Distributing Company), based in the furniture capital of the world, has been able to diversify in a way to combat the negative effects of off-shore imports. It is the ESOP spirit that has enabled them to grow and succeed despite market adversities. Salem is clearly a vibrant company that is poised for continued growth in the global economy in which they participate.”

April 2007
MIA Announces Salem Stone’s Sponsorship
of the MIA 2007 Advertising Awards Competition

The Marble Institute of America (MIA) is accepting entries for the Second Annual MIA Advertising Awards Competition, honoring the best advertising, collateral material and special promotions. The purpose of the competition is simply to honor the best advertising, collateral material and web design by member stone industry companies. New to the competition is a website design category.

On the heels of last year’s successful inaugural event, which drew more than 130 entries, the tremendous growth of internet commerce by member firms mandated that website design be added to the com petition mix. The new web design categories will include both business-to-business and business-to-consumer entries.

While adding the website design category, the MIA will not be offering the radio and television advertising for the 2007 competition, but look for these categories to again be offered in 2007, explained Gary Distelhorst, executive vice president of the 1500-member organization of quarriers, distributors, fabricators, vendors and service suppliers to the industry. “Adding website development is a natural extension of what we did last year,” said Distelhorst. “Today, an effective web presence can be a company’s most prominent advertising vehicle. We want to honor designers for the aesthetics and functionality and for promoting natural stone,” he said.

Other major 2007 judging categories include color and black and white print advertising for newspaper and magazines, and collateral materials, including brochures, posters and direct mail.

Salem Stone of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is sponsoring the ad awards competition for the second consecutive year, Distelhorst explained. Judging is done by a panel of advertising experts, all of with no connection to the stone industry or MIA. The competition is open to all MIA members around the world.

Deadline for entries is July 31, 2007. Awards will be presented at StonExpo in Las Vegas on November 9, 2007, at a special MIA awards luncheon.

April 2007
Salem Stone Releases New Supply and Equipment Catalog

Salem Stone of Winston-Salem, North Carolina has recently distributed its latest 70-page Supply and Equipment catalog. SALEM is a major source of high-quality, cost-effective stone fabricating supplies and equipment.

The supply section of the catalog contains CNC tooling manufactured by DIAMUT, tool holders, saw blades, in-line polishing bricks and well as a full line of polishing discs for manual applications and much more.

The equipment section showcases a selection of equipment second to none. The SALEM line of equipment includes: Gmm bridge saws, Montresor, Monlevi and Bovone straight-line polishers, ESAB water jet, CNC work centers from OMAG as well as Fraccaroli & Balzan water cleaning systems.

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