Plastics manufacturer Nifco UK has much to celebrate this year. It picked up the North East Company of the Year title at our nebusiness awards and now the Stockton firm is preparing to move into a new £8.5m factory. Christopher Knox meets managing director Mike Matthews.

STEPPING in to the offices of Nifco, it is plain to see that company is eager to talk up its successes, and the polished trophy cabinet is one of the first things you notice as you enter the lobby.

With many of the region’s manufacturers still struggling to emerge from shadow of the recession, it is pleasing to see there are still companies out there that are achieving impressive growth and that aren’t afraid to shout about it.

After cutting its workforce from 240 to 160 in the depths of the recession, the firm is now very much on a upward trajectory, and is set to increase its sales from £28m to £32m this year, with an eye on growing this to as much as £60m by 2015.

The growth will be facilitated by a move to a new site near its current home and is being helped along by one of the first grants to be awarded by the Government’s Regional Growth Fund.

With an additional investment of £11m planned for upgrades in plant and machinery, and with an extension to the new plant already being discussed, even before the firm gets the keys in October, Nifco looks set for an exciting future.

The firm’s core market is the motor industry, with its small plastics components used in the majority of cars being made around the world.

Being part of a Japanese group means that the UK site in Stockton is in the driving seat when it comes to securing contracts from manufacturers including Nissan, Honda and Toyota.

However, having the trust of such a large group has not gone unearned; much of the success of Nifco’s UK operations stem from the drive and ambition of its managing director Mike Matthews.

And it isn’t hard to see where much of his dynamism comes from. Born and raised on a council estate on the west side of Darlington, Matthews found himself having to prove his worth from a young age.

He says: “I went to Branksome Comprehensive School, which wasn’t the kind of school that would inspire its pupils to be leaders in industry, but rather just concentrated on making sure we could get jobs by the time we left.

“It wasn’t a deprived school by any means, but the attitudes there were very working class. I got a real shock when leaving primary school at the age of 11, as I joined on a really low level, while my friends were deemed to be cleverer than me and moved up quickly.

“I had always been the class joker from the ages of five and 11 and was really popular because of it. I was now being looked at as the class thicko, which really knocked me back. My pride took a real hammering.”

This early setback would prove to be one of the cornerstones of Matthews’ sense of determination later in life and he soon saw himself improving year on year, until he was eventually given the opportunity to attend sixth form.

However, by this time he had his mind set on employment.

He says: “Although my mum, who was orphaned at birth, had come from a middle class background, our quality of life as a family wasn’t what she had been used to, as my dad had worked around the pits in East Durham. So, by the time I finished school, I just wanted to make some money as I was sick of being skint.

“I had always worked through school, either through a paper round or a milk round, and wanted to take this even further. While I was at school, I won an award for metal work, which really spurred me on and made me want to do something with my hands as a career.

“I had always shown a tendency for mechanical engineering and was always fixing my dad’s car, even at the ages of 14 and 15, just by looking at the Haynes manual.

“My dad always wanted me to be a mechanic as he was always buying crappy old cars that used to break down a lot. My mum, on the other hand, was a bit more aspirational and always wanted me to reach for the moon, and said that even if I didn’t get there I would still go far.”

After turning down a technical apprenticeship with the RAF in London, Matthews stayed put and landed a civilian apprenticeship at Darlington-based tubemaker Phoenix Tubemans.

He says: “Phoenix Tubemans occupied the site of the original automotive works of George Stephenson and actually had old railway tracks running through the middle of the factory.

“People talk about sustainable living now, but we were doing it back in the 70s and 80s, if you think that most people from my background worked in and around the town that they lived.

“Unfortunately, my training was cut short by the closure of the site after the parent company decided to focus on its operations in the Midlands.

“The fact was that the site suffered from huge under-investment, very old machinery and a poor relationship between the workforce and management.

“I probably wouldn’t have chosen to do my training there if I had known these things beforehand. I realised how bad it was when I was given day release to look at how other companies were run, which was a real eye opener for me.”

After being put on a temporary placement at Elite Engineering in Newton Aycliffe, he got a job as a toolmaker there. This proved to be one of the biggest learning experiences of his career.

It was here he started to make the kind of money that had attracted him to manufacturing in the first place. However, more frustrations were to come.

He says “Working in a contract tool room at Elite between 1982 and 1986 was one of the biggest learning curves for me. The skill in that room was astonishing and was nothing like what I was used to at Phoenix Tubemans. Everyone was just so busy, working eight to 12 weeks without a day off.

“I was making so much money at a young age, but I just didn’t have the time to spend it. It was crazy. Another problem was that the managing director was a bit of a skinflint and wanted to extend my apprenticeship just so he could keep my pay down.”

Deciding that such an environment would never allow him to move up the career ladder, Matthews first joined Nifco UK in 1986 as a toolmaker.

Then known as Elta Plastics, the firm saw Matthews move back to the kind of working conditions that had led to the demise of his employment at Phoenix Tubemans.

Becoming slowly disenchanted with his chosen career, he began to look at other means of reaching his potential.

“I soon became frustrated with the slow pace and poor technology at the site,” he says. “Also, we were never receiving any feedback on the products that we were making.

“It was the same at Mitre Plastics, which I joined as a toolmaker after leaving Nifco. We were working on these products for up to 16 weeks and it was like a surrogate mother handing over her child.

“I have always sought out satisfaction in my work, and seeing products working in their finished environment gives you that.”

Ironically, it would be this desire to change career that would see Matthews end up back at Nifco. Deciding that his people skills could be best harnessed in the sales department, he successfully applied for the position of technical sales representative at Nifco in 1988.

“I’ve always liked the nicer things in life and had a habit of choosing girlfriends that came from very good backgrounds,” he says. “One of them was the daughter of a North East entrepreneur, and their family would have lots of holidays, big cars and a big house on the river Tees.

“I just thought that I was never going to get there unless I changed direction. I was on holiday in Santorini when my mum called and told me a letter had arrived from Stockton. I asked her to open it right away and that’s when I learned I had moved over to the dark side.”

Joining at a time when the company was struggling to deal with a succession of bad management decisions, Matthews was able to work with a newly formed team and eventually push the business forward again.

Working his way up to deputy managing director in 2000 and then managing director in 2006, Matthews has managed to navigate the business out of the darkness and is a key architect in its impressive and award-winning growth.

He says: “It was always a pipe dream that I would become managing director of a company. I had a plan to work my way up in sales, but that was it. It’s something that I remind our staff about regularly.

“We had a meeting recently where a member of our engineering management team said, ‘we’ve noticed that you don’t like to rest on your laurels’, which I took as a big compliment.”