Business name: Rex Plastics Inc.
Owners: Family business with brothers Rich Clark and Eric Clark, and their cousin Toni Schmidt.
Address: 12515 N.E. 95th St., Vancouver.
What the business does: Rex Plastics Inc. is a custom plastic injection molder that works with customers large and small internationally. The company often helps inventors and entrepreneurs develop their products.
How has the economy affected your business: Rich Clark said the economy has forced his company to become even more lean than it already was and to invest more time seeking customers. He has seen 20 percent of customers from 2010 disappear in 2011 — which means the business needs to recruit new clients to replace them. Most of the customers who did not return were new and may have been only testing products with prototypes, but some of them were customers with production histories.
Greatest challenge: Converting quotes into customers. Clark said his company spends a lot of time giving quotes for work, but it’s difficult to replace enough disappearing customers to offset rising overhead costs. Rex Plastics has increased its active customers by almost 30 percent in 2011.
