An Oregon manufacturer that provides raw materials used by glass artists in the United States and abroad, has been named the state winners of the SBA annual event honoring exceptional small business owners. The company, Glass Alchemy, Ltd., is owned by Susan Webb-Grimmett and Henry Grimmett and is known internationally for its products that go into glass beads and jewelry, decorative fireplaces, outdoor fountains, artistic goblets and teapots. 

Founded in 1999, the company is one of the new companies making glass media a growth industry domestically and internationally.  They specialize in Borosilicate art glass, which is more durable and resistant to heat than the "soft" glass blown by artists.  Industry and artists use this heat and shock resistant glass. The brand name GA uses for its rods and frits is Boromax®.

The company's mission is to manufacture colored borosilicate glass to provide good jobs and to profitably work with artists, the glass arts industry, and the industrial arts industry to find new applications and products for the use of colored borosilicate. Glass Alchemy, Ltd. values lifelong learning, integrity, honesty, corporate responsibility, working smart, keeping it simple, continuous improvement, quality product.

Today, Glass Alchemy, Ltd. is involved in research in innovative uses of borosilicate glass and advancing health and safety awareness for the lampworker.  They have also partnered with EPA Green Power so that the energy used to manufacture their glass comes from 100% renewable resources.

The company has maintained steady growth in net profits, despite a "partner" who tried to shut them down and stole their formulas to sell them for his own start-up cash.  With an increase of employees from four to seventeen over the past eight years, and a continued rise in glass production volume, the company outgrew its 10,000-square-foot plant, and will soon relocate to a space twice that size with the help of an SBA 7(a) loan.  

For more information, visit http://www.glassalchemyarts.com/