Brentwood was sold to the Dana Corporation on March 31, 1970, just four and a half years after the company’s founding. Dana was, and still is, a worldwide supplier of steel powertrain components for the automotive industry. At the time, steel was remaining steady in the stock market but plastic, a newer material, was rising in value. Dana noticed this trend and decided to invest in a plastics company – Brentwood Plastics.

Custom thermoforming was the genesis of the Brentwood spirit: we took on any project – big or small, simple or complex – to serve our customers’ needs. We were often approached by customers with specific challenges and innovated their solutions.

As Brentwood began to make a name for itself, a lot of time was spent learning and testing new materials in order to understand which ones worked best for specific applications. This expertise allowed us to streamline material and process selection, paving the way for expansions in both products and capabilities.

Over the course of four years from 1971 to 1975, Brentwood’s Plant Manager, Palle Rye, increased the employee base to 35 people and hit his first million in sales. Simultaneously, many of the Dana employees involved in the Brentwood purchase retired and new management decided to sell the company. Palle and his wife, Rita, saw the potential in Brentwood and did not want it to be broken apart, so they purchased the company with the help of American Bank and Trust on December 11, 1975.

Several decades later, Palle’s son, Peter, became Brentwood’s new leader. This took place on April 1, 2010, and was a meaningful decision to move forward as a family business.

Brentwood officially entered the industrial battery business in 1978 and became a major player in the industry once we began supplying plate wrap material, or Koroseal. This product, which is used to prolong battery life by preventing corrosion of the internal lead plates, was often in short supply to battery manufacturers because it was so difficult to produce.

When asked by General Battery to develop a solution, we learned the punch and die process for creating the perforations in the material and decided to manufacture our own roll stock so that our process would not hinge on unreliable suppliers. This decision allowed Brentwood to break away from the competition, developing a vertically integrated, closed-loop system that is still in operation today.

Brentwood’s business was expanding across state lines and we learned that there were several other companies in the United States called Brentwood Plastics. In order to differentiate ourselves, we opted to alter the name of the company and become Brentwood Industries.

Brentwood Plastics, Inc., officially became Brentwood Industries, Inc., on July 2, 1981.

The first Brentwood tube settler modules were manufactured in 1987. Having mastered the production process for plastic sheets used in the cooling tower market, we felt that we could be successful forming a similar media product and made a simple tool to create the first tube settler sheets.

We quickly learned that the standard cross-corrugated module pattern did not yield the best performance and moved to a more efficient, unidirectional tube design. In 1993, we patented our unique tube settler assembly method that featured perfect alignment of flat sheets with corrugations on adjacent modules. Brentwood also introduced the blue color, a trait that our tubes are still known for today.

Brentwood began making plastic wheelbarrow pans in 1989, at the request of a farm-owning customer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. That project sparked the idea to create several standard wheelbarrow designs and produce them commercially for other customers. Initially, numerous lines were produced at different thicknesses, ranging from a lightweight version to the heavy-duty model.

In 2013, we decided to focus solely on our most popular wheelbarrow design. We felt that other suppliers were selling the “good” and “better” versions of the commercial wheelbarrow, but we wanted to produce only the best. The market responded enthusiastically, affectionately referring to them as “Brentwoods,” and today their following is stronger than ever.

In early 1994, Brentwood purchased a facility in Hope, Arkansas. We found the site in Hope as we began exploring new options for a plant that could serve the southern region of the United States with access to the Gulf.

The Hope plant received their first thermoforming machine in 1995 and quickly adapted to learn the manufacturing process. Today, the facility’s capabilities have been widely expanded to include nine thermoforming machines and seven gluing lines. By increasing efficiencies and reducing costs along the way, Hope has supported and enabled the growth of Brentwood’s business in this region.

In 2001, Brentwood received state support to expand the business and worked with the Greater Berks Development Fund to boost industry in Reading. The new building, often referred to as 621 (so called because of its address at 621 Brentwood Drive), features 200,000 square feet of manufacturing space and was constructed directly across the street from Brentwood’s existing facility.

Today, the 621 facility hosts heavy gauge thermoforming, light gauge thermoforming, injection molding, calendering, and perforation, supporting all of Brentwood’s product lines.

Brentwood acquired Polychem Systems in 2003 to expand our offering to the wastewater industry. The Polychem non-metallic chain and flight components fit nicely into the Brentwood product portfolio as the industry was beginning to move away from steel chain and sprockets, adopting plastic as a lighter, corrosion-resistant material.

Over the years, Polychem pushed industry standards, inventing the first non-metallic head shaft, developing heavy duty flight options for wide tank applications, and incorporating the SmartGuard monitoring system into the overall collector system design. These innovations ensured the brand’s continued success. Today, there are roughly 20,000 Polychem chain and flight systems in operation across 66 different countries.

Brentwood’s first sales office in Europe was opened in the Czech Republic in 2007. Europe’s economy and marketplace were similar in size to those of the United States and we felt that we could be successful in gaining part of the market share. The sales office performed well over a three-year period, so the Brentwood Europe facility was opened in Hořovice, a small town outside Prague, in 2010. Initially dedicated to the manufacture of cooling tower fill and components, this facility has expanded to include the production of water and wastewater products and offers cost benefits for the company by allowing us to locally service the European market.

The AccuFAS submerged fixed-film system was developed to build on Brentwood’s success within the wastewater market. AccuFAS utilizes the same type of structured-sheet media as trickling filters and cooling towers, but it is specially engineered for submerged applications. Essentially, by submerging the media in a wastewater tank and using air diffusers, AccuFAS functions as a turbocharged trickling filter, working to reduce the pollutants in the water to an extremely low level.

In 2012, Brentwood developed a mobile testing lab equipped with advanced instrumentation and computer control to run full pilot tests of the AccuFAS system. This led to a number of successful installations, and we are optimistic about the product line’s continued growth.

With steady business growth comes the need for additional space. For this reason, Brentwood purchased new office and warehousing space at 500 Spring Ridge Drive in 2014. This facility became Brentwood’s new headquarters, housing many corporate functions as well as the cooling tower and water/wastewater sales and operations teams.

Purchasing this facility also meant a difficult decision needed to be made regarding Brentwood’s previous headquarters at 610 Morgantown Road. That building served the company well for 45 years and was home to many innovations and memories; we simply outgrew the space. Fortunately, we were able to sell the property to another local, family business in the hope that they will honor its history and take good care of the facility.

Brentwood celebrated its 50th anniversary on August 25, 2015. Following the anniversary date, each Brentwood location hosted its own unique celebration – ranging from a 60s-themed throwback party to soccer matches and basketball games – to thank employees for their hard work and enjoy the family-style camaraderie that Brentwood has always encouraged.

Additionally, a commemorative book detailing our 50 years in business was self-published by our marketing team and provided to each employee.

Here’s to the next 50 years!

Over the past 50 years, Brentwood’s Custom Thermoforming division has evolved into Custom Solutions. As we developed initiatives to vertically integrate, made strategic acquisitions, and added key personnel to our staff, Brentwood’s knowledge of plastics extended well past thermoforming.

From custom-blending materials in our Lebanon calendering and extrusion facility to testing the performance of finished parts, we became experts in all aspects of the plastics manufacturing process. Additionally, Brentwood took the next step into injection molding to further integrate our processes and offer more solutions to our customers. We are now able to accommodate a wider range of run volumes and source multiple assembly pieces in-house. Our aim is to continue taking on projects of any size and scope while diversifying our capabilities to address the complex challenges facing our customers.

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