Bracalente: Knowing customers, employees and the trade

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A third-generation manufacturing company in Upper Bucks County continues to thrive by valuing its founder’s mission of honesty, hard work and integrity and by going the extra mile for customers.

Indeed, listening to customers’ problems and concerns, and then working with them to find solutions, have grown Bracalente Manufacturing Group from its rural Upper Bucks headquarters to include a manufacturing and machinery plant in Suzhou, China, and supply chain partnerships around the world.

Hands-on know-how is the hallmark of Ron Bracalente’s daily operations approach, and he said the experience is critical in his ability to work with staff and clients and his dedication to growing the family business.

“I learned the trade, and that’s the key to my approach with employees, customers and our industry,” said Bracalente, president and CEO.

He also credited his grandfather Silvene Bracalente’s tenacity and work ethic, saying that he worked a number of jobs from a pizza shop to a job at Bethlehem Steel.

“When he began the business, it was just him and my grandmother working out of their garage in 1950,” Bracalente said.

What began as a garage startup now includes the 80,000-square-foot facility in Trumbauersville on six acres, 140 employees in Pennsylvania and 75 in China.

At a young age, Ron Bracalente developed an interest in learning the family business from the ground up. Time spent in the shop and on the machining floor – as a teen, through high school and on college breaks and summer vacations – was pivotal in his professional success.

He has a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University, studying operations management and human resource management.

“While I was at college, I knew I wanted to study things that I could bring back to the business,” he said.