Diane and Mike Seger of Seger Glass Company are preparing to move the business to a new location and open Seger Granite and Marble. Photo: Richard McNey

Mike Seger founded Seger Glass Company in 1977, following his father’s advice.“I was a teenager not knowing what to do with my life and my father told me to find a need and fill it,” he said. “I just stumbled into this and ended up building the company from nothing to this.” Thirty years later the business has grown into a successful operation offering a wide range of glass products and services. The business has been so successful that it has outgrown its current location at U.S. Route 50 and Goldsborough Street. The construction of a new 30,000-square-foot building is nearing completion in Talbot Commerce Park and the company hopes to move and hold a grand opening May 1.

The new location will also house a new business, Seger Granite and Marble. “It was another case of finding a need and filling it,” Seger said. His wife, Diane, who is the vice president of the company, calls the new business the “natural next step.”

“We are relocating the current glass company because we need more space for the existing glass company and to give better customer service, improve inventory levels and to give a broader range of products,” Mike said. Seger Glass offers a variety of products and services. The company’s products include commercial windows and glass doors, residential windows, automotive glass, greenhouses and solariums, shower doors and enclosures, Phantom screen doors, wall systems and partitioning, mirrors, mirrored glass, table tops, tinted glass, safety glass, plastics and Eastern and Perfecta awning systems. All the products the company sells are from top manufacturers, Mike said.

“The products are top class and we stand behind every product,” he said. Services include installation of all glass, fleet services, insurance company services, and cutting and finishing services (etching, sandblasting, engraving, graphics, high-polish edging and beveling). The company was founded on four basic principles: offer top-quality service, offer best quality products at a fair price, treat every customer with respect and appreciation and stand behind your service 100 percent. “Everything we have done in the glass business is to shorten lead times and be able to meet customer demands for wanting their products when they want them and not being dictated when they are going to get them,” Mike said. Much of the company’s work is done using computer numerical control (CNC) machines. “We have CNCs that can cut anything we can tell a computer to do,” Mike said.

Seger Glass's current building is up for sale as the company plans to move to a new building in Talbot Commerce Park. In addition to housing the glass company, the building will be home to Seger Granite and Marble. The company will sell granite, marble, cambria and soapstone surfacing. “We figure this is a good marriage with the glass company,” Mike said. “We will use the same values in that business that we have used in this business for the last 30 years. The process and machinery for doing granite and marble are very similar to dealing with the process and machinery of doing glass.”

The company will stock a full inventory of slabs and sheets for customers to select from and be able to have in their homes within 10 days, he said. Both companies will be using modern equipment for glass and stone fabrication, he said. “It is a very similar operation to the glass company,” he said. “There is a big demand.” When the building is completed, both companies will hold a several-day grand opening where people will be invited to come inside and learn about the companies. Seger Glass currently employs 16 people. Employee numbers between the two companies could increase to 30 or even 60 in the first year of operation, Mike said. The 1,600-square-foot upstairs of the new location will be home to Diane Seger’s business, Fitness with Diane LLC. The business will be a Jazzercise franchise.

Mike Seger says that his business is not perfect, but the employees strive for perfection. “There are times that we have made mistakes, but we acknowledge the mistakes and if a customer is not happy, or if we are not pleased with the job we did, we make it right,” he said. While nothing can ever be perfect, Seger Glass reaches for perfection, and Mike believes that same philosophy will make Seger Granite and Marble a success. “We live in a day and time when the cheapest thing around is not always the best,” he said. “You soon forget the primary cost and long remember the quality.”

“That philosophy has led us to a large percentage of repeat customers,” Diane said. Mike sees his biggest challenges in the future being adapting to the new machinery and technology and not dealing with the customers, which he says the company has down pretty well. Getting the employees to learn the new technologies and the different characteristics of the stones will be the challenge, he said.

“There will always be a problem in Talbot county and neighboring counties trying to find a good workforce when these counties have made it so difficult for the workforce to find a place to live,” he said. Still, he believes it will be “fairly simple” to find employees with the skills to operate CNC machines thanks to the number of young people coming out of high school and college with such skills. Diane said she has contacted the local colleges looking for potential employees. “All of my employees have a right to go to community college to take whatever courses they want to better themselves at the company’s expense,” Mike added.

Several employees are currently taking computer-aided design (CAD) courses. “What I would like to see, at 50 years old, is a business with a group of employees who are genuinely proud of everything they do, enjoy their jobs, work together, take responsibility, always acknowledge that the customers’ needs are primary and to reach a common goal of achieving the best quality we can for the customer,” Mike said. With 30 years in the business, he believes the business is becoming a little easier.

“The biggest challenge of any business man is trying to keep the workforce energized, interested and focused on the reason for their existence in the workforce every day, no matter what business it is,” he said. “If that is going great then the customers are happy, employees are happy, the business is running smoothly, everything is in sync and the end result is it is going to be profitable.”