Presidential cabinet member tours DiamondBack Truck Covers in Philipsburg

PHILIPSBURG — DiamondBack Truck Covers, based in Philipsburg’s Moshannon Valley Regional Business Park, has been attracting attention from the federal government for its continual innovation, growth and success.

Jovita Carranza, presidential cabinet member and administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), stopped in Philipsburg on Oct. 8 to tour the Diamondback manufacturing facility.

Carranza spoke to the DiamondBack team about its expansion initiatives, admired the company’s products and production space and spoke about the SBA’s efforts and goals.

“It takes a whole community ecosystem to really build infrastructure to support the number of employees you have now,” Carranza said.

Last year, DiamondBack was awarded two prestigious awards from the SBA: founders Ethan Wendle and Matthew Chverchko were awarded the Pennsylvania and Western Pa. SBA Small Business Persons of the Year award, and the company competed in Washington, D.C., for the SBA Small Business of the Year award.

Ben Eltz, DiamondBack CEO, standing outside the company’s state-of-theart, 37,000-square-foot facility, credited the SBA and community partners with the company’s growing list of accomplishments.

“The SBA has been a really big part of the DiamondBack success story,” Eltz said. “[Our] building here was financed through a 504 Loan. The Northwest [Bank] team worked to get that going, and we appreciate their assistance. We would have had something, but not the building we wanted.”

DiamondBack now employs 50 production workers and 95 people total. The company is currently looking to expand by another 20 employees and is launching an innovative new schedule to meet its goals.

“Right now, our limiting factor is our production capacity,” Eltz said. “We have the sales, and it’s really about finding good people and getting them in here and getting them trained. We would hire 20 people today if we could. We’re hoping this non-traditional shift gets us where we need to be. Starting on November 1, all of our production employees will work 35-hour schedules, but get paid for 40. This will allow us to double our capacity by hiring twice as many people and keep everyone on daylight hours.”

Eltz explained that the new work schedule will consist of two shifts: one starting at 6:15 a.m. and the other beginning when that shift ends, at 11:15 a.m. The company already experimented with a successful trial run of this schedule.

“At DiamondBack, one of our core values is ‘Work smarter,’” Eltz said. “We believe our team can get more production done in 35 hours than most people can get done in 40. This non-traditional shift gives people 350 hours a year at home while maintaining the same pay. We believe our team will use this extra time to live out another of our core values of making an impact by investing time in their families, friends and local organizations.”

Carranza praised DiamondBack for its initiative and said such strategies are likely to attract student employees and people with demanding schedules who need flexibility.

Carranza said DiamondBack contradicts the notion that small businesses across the country are failing.

“These small businesses are looking for more people – they’re ready to hire,” Carranza said. “It’s not the image that’s out there — (it’s usually) that you all are demised.”

Carranza asked how DiamondBack has adjusted to the CDC COVID-19 mandates and said the SBA continues to monitor the situation daily. She added that Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-15, is very concerned about what happens to local small businesses, and the SBA wants to relieve trepidation among small businesses by working to streamline the application process for loans and other resources.

Though there were some supply-chain hurdles to contend with at first, the company has maintained its growth trajectory of doubling every three years.

“All of our employees are well,” Eltz said. “There’s sometimes a narrative that everyone is decimated, and it’s awful, or nobody is coming back because the layoff benefits are too great. We had 100 percent of people come back on the first day, on time. They could have stayed home and made more money, but they didn’t.”

Carranza toured the DiamondBack production floor and learned about how the truck covers are made and about the employee-minded design of the space, with its high ceilings and ample natural light. The administrator was especially taken by the company’s well-appointed and spacious breakroom, and one of her assistants joked that the SBA should remodel its breakroom to mirror Diamond-Back’s.

“When we built this place, we wanted to do something a little bit different,” Eltz said. “Our mission statement as a company is, ‘We want to be one of the best manufacturers in central Pennsylvania that employees love to work for and customers love to buy from.’ We know when employees love to work somewhere, the customer can feel the energy they have and the commitment they have when they get the product. They open the box and think ‘Wow, someone cares about what they just did.’”

Carranza thanked the DiamondBack team for “sharing your prosperity with us.”

“We are honored we could share our story with the administrator and her team personally and sincerely appreciate the support we’ve received from the SBA,” Eltz said.