MONROE, Wash. — At a manufacturing facility in Monroe, memories are being minted before they're even made.
"You're at Morris Magnets, and we manufacture gift and souvenir products and sell them all around the country," said co-owner Bill Peterson who bought the promotional products business nearly 30 years ago and turned it into one the largest of its kind in the country.
"We work with zoos, aquariums, museums, theme parks and university bookstores. Some of the names you'll probably be familiar with would be Disney. We do things for Google, we do things for Microsoft," said Peterson. "We're doing coasters, we're doing picture frames, we're doing awards."
But by far the biggest product they make is their magnets.
"We're putting out about 30,000 units a day," said Jeff Cannon, co-owner of Morris Magnets. "Paper prints come out from the graphic design team. Those prints are laminated onto different materials. So they may take paper print and laminate it to acrylic, they may laminate to recycled wood board."
The use of lasers in the production process was a game changer for the company.
"Everything we used to do, we cut it all out by hand back in the day. And then we moved over to lasers and with the laser, they can just punch in a number and the machine knows where the parts are at and cuts everything out," said Cannon. "There's different watts of lasers that we have. Some would take your finger off and some would give you a nice burn."
"After the lasers cut them out. There’re guys back there, if they're a magnet, they have to buff each piece individually because there's a little bit of residue left on there by the laser," said Cannon. And then after the operator is done with that they bring them out to the shipping department and the shipping department will either sticker them or wrap them based on customer's needs."
And all those customers continue to make the company grow.
"We've got over 60 employees here. And it's great to see everyone grow with us as a company. We're a big family here," Cannon said.
From cute, to corporate - Morris Magnets is leaving its mark, one refrigerator door at a time.
"If it says Made in USA on the back of a magnet, chances are we made it," Peterson said.