.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
CELINA — When Janice and Jeff Grieshop decided to expand their tent rental company to a tent manufacturing company, they started by taking a tent apart.
That was their first step in making tents. Now their company, Celina Tent, employs 95 people who manufacture tents for a variety of industries.
Looking back, Janice and her son have realized “we did a lot of things wrong” when they took apart that first tent, but that’s how they got better at what they do.
The company started as a tent rental company in 1996 out of Janice, Herb and Jeff Grieshop’s home in Celina. Today, it occupies about five acres of land, three buildings and makes tents, instead of renting them.
“Of all the tent companies, we’re the youngest, and we have the most up-to-date equipment,” said Janice Grieshop, one of the Celina Tent owners. “We’re not a tent rental company. Everybody calls here to rent tents.”
The company stopped renting tents and started only manufacturing them in 2005, after Jeff, Janice’s son, realized in 2000 that the company could make them at a lower price.
Now, the company works in many industries, making tents, tarps, awnings, containers, liners and more for the automotive, agricultural, military and commercial industries, Grieshop said.
THE PEOPLE
Annette Goodwin has worked for the company for more than 12 years and is now a production manager. What’s made her stay is the Grieshops, she said.
“It’s family owned, and they genuinely care about their employees,” Goodwin said.
Now, Goodwin feels as if she has a stake in the company and wants to help it succeed.
“I consider it partly mine,” she said. “It’s a personal pride in the product we make.”
Lately, the company has been focused on making tents for the military. It makes the fabric part of military hospitals.
The company’s work with the military began in 2007 and has been steady since, Grieshop said. Celina Tent is waiting on some material to finish the military tents it’s working on now. When it gets it, Grieshop anticipates it will hire more employees.
It’s accepting applications now, though it prefers candidates go through Manpower or Spherion, she said.
Another hiring period will come when the company’s 27,000 square-foot expansion is completed, which Grieshop anticipates will be in October.
“It’s hard to get employees to come to Celina Tent because they think they’re going to be setting up tents,” Grieshop said. “They have no idea what we do.”
Instead of setting up tents, employees work machines, sew, work printers, design and engineer tents.
Most importantly, they have to think, Grieshop said.
“It’s not factory work,” she said. “It’s not an assembly line. Everything is different all the time. … We need intelligent people that can think, that can figure things out … you need some ability to think outside the box.”
THE WORK
The work is different each day, and Goodwin said employees have to use their mind at Celina Tent.
“It’s not just pushing a button. You really have to care about what you’re doing,” she said.
Employees are expected to have a high school diploma or equivalent and are trained on the job, in every department of the company.
“What’s unique about us is everybody learns everything,” Grieshop said. “Everybody’s familiar with what’s going on. They all work in every department. That way, they get a good idea of why stuff has to be precise, a good overall view of how the product goes together.”
Grieshop also looks for energy and willingness to work with other people in applicants.
An estimated 18 employees work in the office, doing human resources, design and more. Beyond the office, the printing building features large industrial printers, heat sealers and sewing machines.
The manufacturing and warehouse space is home to CNC machines, cutting machines, large sewing machines and more. An unfinished military medical tent sits in the back, waiting for the parts from a supplier so employees can finish it.
Once the building is completed, tents will be taken from the existing manufacturing building through a tunnel to be completed in the new building, Grieshop said.
In addition to its Celina location, the company has warehouse space in Coldwater and a factory in China, which only makes what Grieshop calls the “cookie cutter” tents, or the ones mostly for tent rental companies that are plain, white and all the same size.
The China plant frees up Celina manufacturing space so it can make more and keep up with demand.
When Grieshop and her son decided to go into manufacturing and stop renting tents, they did it for “better control” and because “we thought it would be a better route to go.”
Now, Grieshop said, “It has been. It’s been very good for us.”
Her goal is to “keep diversifying” the company.
“That we keep our feelers out, that we can find new products, get into all the segments that are out there,” she said. “We’re always looking for new avenues.”
