From Factory Floor to Government Door How a 102-Year-Old American Manufacturer Unlocked a New Revenue Channel in the Public Sector

Durable Corporation is a 102-year-old, family-style American manufacturer headquartered in Norwalk, Ohio. With roughly 40 employees, Durable is the largest manufacturer of loading dock bumpers in the United States and a leading producer of commercial-grade matting products made from post-consumer recycled tires. 

“We’re the largest loading dock bumper manufacturer in the US, if not the world, but we’re always looking for new channels.”

— Phil Lorcher, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Durable Corporation

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Despite its century-long history, Durable operates with the agility of a much younger company. A lean office staff of 10 supports 30 production and shipping workers. Over the past 15–25 years, the company has expanded its product portfolio through targeted acquisitions, and has brought production in-house to control quality and cost. 

The public sector push is being driven by Vice President Sales & Marketing Phil Lorcher, a 38-year company veteran whose broadcasting-school training gave him a knack for efficient, high-touch customer service. Together, with Sales Manager Nick Gnepper, the Durable team set out to identify potential public sector buyers.

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The Challenge

Durable has built a successful business selling through industrial, warehousing, and janitorial distributors in the private sector, but the challenge was selling directly to government agencies, school districts, military installations, and other public institutions. Even though they purchase the exact same products – like custom entranceway mats – they do so through a different buying process and channel.

The challenge was threefold:

• Visibility: How do you find out that a county building or school district is looking for matting products before the purchase is already complete?
• Timing: Government buyers operate on fiscal year cycles (with September 30th being the federal year-end) and are motivated to spend allocated funds quickly in that early-fall window.
• Channel protection: Durable needed to sell direct to public sector buyers without undercutting their distribution partners. 

On the last point, they discovered that it wasn’t as hard to sell their products at the list price.

“A lot of times public sector agencies and the military actually care less about price, and what they want is a certain product that fits their needs and can be delivered in the timeline they need it. If we miss an opportunity, it’s usually because the purchase just didn’t happen because of timing – not because a competitor beat us on price.”

— Phil Lorcher, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Durable Corporation

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The Approach

Two years ago, Durable made a strategic acquisition: a small company with an established direct-sales channel to government and military customers, operating in Tampa, Florida. This gave them an immediate beachhead – long-standing relationships with military bases (including recurring orders for custom logo mats for Naval ships) and institutional buyers like schools, universities, jails, and prisons.

“The last thing a new captain wants to see on a ship is the previous captain’s custom mat. So he takes the mat, sees where it came from and calls us.”

— Phil Lorcher, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Durable Corporation

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To scale beyond those existing relationships, the Durable team built a test-and-learn go-to-market strategy for the public sector, using NationGraph as a signal intelligence tool to surface opportunities. Their strategy had three components:

1. Leverage manufacturer status. As the actual manufacturer (not a reseller), Durable can bid competitively on government contracts while still maintaining margins that protect their dealer network.
2. Get upstream of the purchase. Use procurement signal tools to identify open requests for pricing and active procurement windows.
3. Target the right decision-makers. Go directly to the superintendents, board members, and facilities managers who hold discretionary budget authority.

“We’re a company that makes things, but we are adapting our business with AI with NationGraph, and we see a lot of value in the time savings and focus it gives our team.” 

— Phil Lorcher, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Durable Corporation

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We’ve gotten a lot smarter since we started using Signals to find opportunities, and the Signals have gotten a lot smarter about our business and products. With new data – like council and board recordings – we can be more proactive in reaching out and establishing ourselves.”

— Nick Gnepper, Sales Manager, Durable Corporation

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The Results

Within the first few months of refining their signal configuration and outreach process, the Durable team saw measurable progress:

• Signal volume tripled from ~12 to 50+ actionable alerts per week for mats. The team even set up early indicator signals for “slip and fall” references in board meeting minutes.
• The team developed a repeatable outreach workflow: triage signals, apply a pre-written email template, and customize by industry vertical (schools, military, municipal facilities).
• The Tampa office expanded its cold outreach using enriched email lists to schools, universities, jails, and prisons – generating a consistent source of deals.

As a next step, the team is looking into Signals from capital improvement budgets and plans and press releases announcing project funding – to identify potential opportunities even earlier with NationGraph.

“One significant government order covers the entire cost of the tool we are using to find these opportunities, and generally we can turn that into a recurring order. Everything after the initial opportunity is upside.”

— Phil Lorcher, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Durable Corporation

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Lessons from Durable

• You don’t need a massive sales team. Durable entered the public sector with just two dedicated people in Tampa plus two internal champions creating Signals and running outbound campaigns.
• Manufacturer and distributor status matters. Government buyers value sourcing directly from makers – it simplifies the procurement process and often meets buy-American preferences.
• Signal refinement is iterative. The goal is fewer, higher-quality alerts, but testing and learning what works and what to look for is the key to smarter Signals.
• Fiscal year timing is everything. Federal year-end (September 30), state and local fiscal calendars, and bond/levy cycles create predictable windows of concentrated buying activity.
• Think upstream. The best signals aren’t RFPs – they’re the capital improvement budgets, meeting minutes where a risk or concern is raised, and other sources that your competitors may not be looking at.