We are excited to introduce Jacqueline DeWitt, our Summer Marketing Intern! Jacqueline is from Glenview and attends the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a rising junior, she is looking forward to studying abroad in Dublin, Ireland this fall semester. Jacqueline is pursuing a degree in Advertising and Art & Design. Some of her hobbies include graphic design and singing. She is a proud member of the Girls Next Door, the university's premiere women a cappella group. 

Jacqueline's thoughts on her internship experience:

I am grateful to be working alongside people at Davies Molding who are so experienced in their craft. After being here for only a short time, I feel that I’ve learned valuable information about the company, and I cannot wait to produce marketing material using this knowledge. The company employees are extremely accommodating. They have presented a variety of projects to me based on my interests. I'm really looking forward to the work because I know these projects will help me gain real-world experience.  

We're thrilled to welcome the newest addition to the Davies Molding family, Judy!  Judy will be working in our inside sales department.

Judy is originally from Chicago and currently lives in Elmhurst with her husband, Joe.  She has 3 children, Jeremy, Jake, and Jenna.  Her son Jake and his wife are expecting a baby girl in September, and this will be Judy's first grandchild! Needless to say, she's excited.  Judy also has a new puppy, Ernie (old English sheep dog), who is only 5 months old.

When she's not hard at work, Judy likes to watch the Blackhawks and White Sox play, like a true Chicagoan.  She also loves shopping, especially for antiques.

Welcome to the team, Judy!

Out with the old, in with the new!  In our case, that's disposable cups and stainless steel water bottles.  Here at Davies, we know how important it is to be environmentally friendly AND stay hydrated, especially during these hot summer months.  So, last week, we held Hydration Day for the entire company. 

All employees received a stainless steel reusable bottle by Zippo that they can fill up at Gatorade and water stations in their departments. These double wall vacuum bottles are designed to keep warm drinks warm for up to 6 hours and cold drinks cold for up to 24 hours! They hold 17oz of liquid, and have a push button lock/unlock feature to prevent spills.  Best of all, they help reduce waste and damage to the environment.

We know how important it is to do our part, so we are very proud of the efforts made this week to help the environment, and we hope they will have a positive effect on the environment as well as our employees!

It's that time once again for another engineering intern to join our team for the summer months. This year, we welcome Joe to the team!

Joe will be entering his Junior year at Iowa State University in the fall.  His major is Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Sales Engineering.  Joe is originally from La Grange, IL.

Joe currently plays rugby at Iowa State and is the captain of the team. When he is not in class or playing rugby, Joe can be found lounging at home with a book or playing golf or softball with his friends.

We enjoy showing the interns the ropes at Davies and hope they gain valuable hands on experience while they are here. The interns also look to learn from us. Joe hopes to perfect the craft of computer design this summer while working on projects using Solidworks software. Beyond enhancing his computer abilities, Joe would like to understand efficiencies and downfalls of a plant and production. He's looking forward (and is already enjoying) the next three months!

We've all participated in the standard team building activities at work. The ladies at Davies Molding decided to take part in an escape room as a team building activity. None of us had done an escape room before, so we weren't sure what to expect.

An escape room is a game where you work together to solve various puzzles using clues and hints you're provided. The goal is to escape within the time limit provided. Each escape room has a story line that you learn about when you first enter the room.

In the escape room we participated in, we were all doctors in a laboratory. We had one hour to dismantle the "bomb" in the room and escape. We quickly realized that we needed to break into smaller groups to work on the various puzzles. Communication and organization were key!

Unfortunately, we were unable to escape in the hour time limit. We did have fun working together and learned that this team building event was very similar to work related situations. We needed all team members to work on various tasks and communicate what they found out to the group.

If you're looking for a great team building event, we highly recommend an escape room. We had fun, but more importantly, learned how to work better as a team.

Day 2 turned out to be a great day at the GPS 2016 show in Calgary.  We had many visitors come by the booth to learn more about Davies and our Descender line of dissolvable frac balls.  We had one person think our frac balls were candy!  We added a disclaimer, to make sure nobody would eat them.  They are dissolvable, but not for human consumption.  This certainly became a topic of conversation.  

Yesterday, we had an opportunity to visit with one of our Heico sister companies, ARDCO.  They were displaying their impressive off-road equipment in the outdoor area at the show.

Today, is day 3 of the show.  It's the final day.  We'll give you a recap on the last day and closing of the show tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

It was a beautiful day in Calgary yesterday with warm, sunny skies.  The perfect start to GPS 2016!  We set up the Davies Molding booth #2123 in the Corral exhibit hall at Stampede Park and were ready to go.  

We had many visitors come by to discuss our standard knobs, handles, cases and our custom plastic components.  But, with this being the Global Petroleum Show, there was a definite interest in our frac balls and the Davies Descender series of dissolvable frac balls.  As oil prices continue to rise, fracking activities are expected to pick up, creating a great opportunity for our frac balls.

We did have several visitors ask us about other possible applications for our DDP resins.  What a great idea!  Yes, we can produce other shapes and down-hole components using these resins!

We're looking forward to Day 2 and more great conversations with the attendees of GPS 2016!

Please visit www.daviesmolding.com to learn more about our Descender series and other products we manufacture.

Davies Molding was happy to host The Heico Companies' top legal partners as part of its annual Year in Review.  The participants visited our facility in Carol Stream, IL, to see firsthand, how Davies makes such a wide range of knobs, handles, cases and custom plastic components.  Everyone had the opportunity to visit each of our departments: tool room, shipping, compression molding, injection molding and finishing.  They were given an overview of each department's capabilities and able to see our manufacturing process in action. The participants also had a chance to ask us questions.

We're always excited to showcase our products and capabilities to others.  To learn more about Davies Molding, please Click Here.

Yesterday, we had the honor of having US Representative Peter Roskam (IL-06) speak to all of our employees.  He is truly interested in helping US businesses maintain their strength in the world economy.  As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, he specifically talked about revising the US Tax Code to be more relevant to changing economic times.  He also talked of his recent trip to China and the troubles they are facing.

Congressman Roskam was very complimentary of our molding and secondary operations.  He viewed all the recent investments into the compression, injection, finishing and tooling departments within our operation.  He asked a lot of questions about the processes as well as what he could do to help.  It is refreshing to see our elected politicians actually reaching out to their constituents and local businesses regarding the current industry climate in Illinois and what they think Washington could do to protect small businesses.

The holiday season in upon us and here at Davies we like to give where we can. This year we are participating in One Warm Coat.  We're giving the gift of warmth this season!

One Warm Coat provides coats to those that are in need.  We are collecting coats and funds at Davies to help with this great cause. Each $1 that we donate helps to warm 2 people. We hope to provide warmth to many individuals in need this season with the coat drive.

If you would like to learn more about One Warm Coat or participate in our drive, please visit www.onewarmcoat.org or email us at info@daviesmolding.com.

Enjoy the spirit of giving!