Family & History

Ironwood Plastics, Inc. was founded in 1979 by Gordon K. Stephens. He was introduced to the tooling industry at an early age at Henry Ford Trade School. After 27 years at Master Spline Tool & Gage in Detroit, Gordon spent three years at Phillips Plastics before establishing Ironwood Plastics in 1979. Drawing on a lifetime's worth of experience with tooling and injection molding, Mr. Stephens made the leap to ownership and has proven that the American Dream can still be achieved.

Mr. Stephens chose to locate his company in Ironwood for several reasons - being a native of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, he knew the caliber of people in the area and the love these people had for their homeland. He knew this community took pride in their work and would be committed to the organization. Likewise, in 1987 when he saw a growing need to add a second facility, Mr. Stephens chose Two Rivers, Wisconsin for the new site, a community cherishing the same work and family values as the Ironwood community. Mr. Stephens' dream to build a close-knit, high-precision organization has prospered.

Although Mr. Stephens retired in 1999, the second generation of Stephens (Gordon's three sons) now manage daily operations with the same ethics for quality and customer commitment that were instilled in them by their father.

Founded on the strength of family values, today Ironwood Plastics is unique in the way it has embraced every employee into a loyal community- committed to quality, reliability, and customer service.

We invite you to see what Ironwood Plastics is made of - we challenge you to challenge us. We are committed to your satisfaction, and we will do what it takes to meet and exceed your expectations.

The Stephens Family