TMI Coatings, Inc. receives national re-certification from Women’s Business Development Center (WBDC)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
Tracy Gliori
651-452-6100
651-452-0598
tmi@tmicoatings.com
St. Paul, MN – (July, 2010) –TMI Coatings, Inc., a business specializing in the application of protective coatings and linings for industry, received national re-certification as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Development Center (WBDC), a regional certifying partner of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).
WBENC’s national standard of certification implemented by the WBDC is a meticulous process including an in-depth review of the business and site inspection. The certification process is designed to confirm the business is at least 51% owned, operated and controlled by a woman or women.
By including women-owned businesses among their vendors, corporations and government
agencies demonstrate their commitment to fostering diversity and the continued development of their supplier/vendor diversity programs.
TMI Coatings is a Painting and Restoration Contractor specializing in the application of protective coatings and linings. One-third of TMI’s business is sandblasting, rigging and painting (including hazardous paint removal) tanks, structural steel and bridges; one-third of their business is concrete coatings and the remainder is restoration.
About WBENC
The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council is the nation’s largest third party certifier
of businesses owned and operated by women in the United States. WBENC is a resource for the
more than 700 US companies and government agencies that rely on WBENC’s certification as an
integral part of their supplier diversity programs.
This CEO, and her company, getting attention in high places
TMI Coatings in the Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses in Minnesota
TMI Coatings in the Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses in Minnesota
March 10th, 2010
Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal
Each year the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal honors the Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses in Minnesota. 2009 found TMI Coatings included in this prestigious list and ranked in position 20.
Tracy Gliori is the president and CEO of TMI Coatings. In business since May 1985, the company has approximately 85 employees. We are not dependent on brokered labor and use our own crews for our work. TMI Coatings is licensed to do business in 23 states.
One-third of our business is municipal sandblasting, rigging, and painting water towers; one-third of our business is flooring, and the remainder is building restoration.
TMI Coatings has a new, larger facility in Eagan, Minnesota, which includes a 7,000 sq. foot office, 11,500 sq. foot warehouse, and 4 acre yard.
A Focus On Big Jobs - Profile Entrepreneur: Tracy Gliori
St. Paul Pioneer Press
November 9, 2008
Profile Entrepreneur: Tracy Gliori
Tracy Gliori knew when she was only 11 years old that she would someday
have her own business.
Her dad told her so.
"He told me in the fifth grade that after I graduated college, he would
help me start a business," Gliori, the co-founder and president of TMI
Coatings Inc. recalled. "I don't remember exactly when and I don't
remember how he said it, but it changed my life forever."
Jim Imre never told his daughter what kind of business to start. But he
had his own business doing commercial painting and refinishing jobs that
he started in the basement of the family home in White Bear Lake. Gliori
assumed her business would be similar. But an early business lesson from
her father cast the die on how her business would differ from his.
"One day he was telling me the differences between a business where you
sell a lot of small items and try to make a little money off of each one
or where you sell a few big items," Gliori said.
The fifth-grader decided she liked big.
So after graduating from the College of St. Thomas in 1985 with a degree
in business, Gliori and her dad started TMI Coatings, and she decided to
super-size it.
Her company would tackle industrial jobs and a wide variety of them.
Eagan-based TMI has done everything from sandblasting and painting water
towers to refurbishing the Mill City Flour sign at the Mill City Museum
in Minneapolis.
Even its indoor painting jobs are beefy. The company doesn't do offices,
Gliori explains, instead focusing on big jobs like the Kemps Marigold
Foods plant in Farmington. The company pours concrete coatings for pits,
dikes and floors so they don't leak during industrial spills, and it has
lined steel tanks that hold chemicals for companies such as 3M, Gliori
said.
TMI has done a lot of work for agricultural giant Cargill, refinishing
grain elevators, she said. A wall of favorite projects at TMI's offices
includes a pic! ture of a grain headhouse where the company did some
concrete ! restorat ion and waterproofing.
It even does tuckpointing, the restoration of mortar joints in brick
walls. It restored Hamline University's wall at the entrance to its St.
Paul campus.
None of her competitors handles the range of projects that TMI does,
Gliori said. A competitor might sandblast and paint bridges, she said,
but would not also bid for a water tank job.
The jobs are gritty. Behind TMI's offices is a cavernous garage and
storage yard where dusty sand haulers and air compressors the size of a
small garage are parked. The yard is mostly empty in fall, because that
is the busy time when the equipment is out at job sites, and crew are
trying to get clients' work done before winter.
Gliori acknowledges she works in a man's world, noting that most of her
company's approximately 80 employees are men. She recalls that when she
went on sales calls years ago, clients would warn her not to wear a
skirt or heels because everyone walked around in steel-toed b! oots and
hard hats.
But she said she hasn't encountered discrimination or hostility because
she's a woman, and she found her talent lay in making the sales while
her father managed the jobs.
Her father dissolved his own business in 1985 when he helped her start
TMI as a federally designated "women's business enterprise," or WBE.
But Gliori said she was quickly disabused of the notion that it would
help her company snag easy contracts. "No one calls you and says, 'Are
you a WBE?' " Gliori said
So she sticks to basics: price and workmanship. The company doesn't make
being a WBE part of its sales pitch. "I'm just not sure it's an
advantage or not," she said.
At St. Jude Medical's manufacturing plant in Minnetonka, TMI recently
finished recoating a floor in a clean room where medical devices are
assembled. Steve Thoreson, a facilities engineer, said he's used the
company several times for floor-coating jobs because it has quoted him
the lowest cost! per square foot "and their work is good."
The company h! as been profitable since its inception, Gliori said, and
this year it's projecting sales of $11.2 million, making it midsized in
its industry, she said.
Since 90 percent of TMI's work is maintenance, it has been insulated
from the halt in new construction, Gliori said, but the slumping economy
poses a challenge.
"We are finding the same number of opportunities to bid on for work,
however, to be profitable, we have to work with the field (staff) to get
the job done as efficiently as possible," Gliori said.
Gliori's dad, mom, brother and sister have all been involved in her
business at some point, but now it's just her.
In 1996, her father died in a motorcycle accident. Gliori said it left a
hole in her life that still aches.
So far it doesn't appear that her own daughters, now 11 and 12, will
carry on the family tradition. In fact, her older daughter brought up
the subject a couple of years ago.
"I told her not to worry about it," Gliori said. But ! just in case they
change their minds, she made them the same offer her dad gave her.
TMI Coatings Named Top 25 Women Owned Business for 2010
TMI Coatings has been honored as one of the top 25 Women Owned Businesses in Minnesota for 2010 by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. This is the fourth consecutive year that Tracy Gliori, President, and her staff have been recognized with this award.
