Blue Ribbon Corp was acquired in November of 2005, by GP:50 NY Ltd. and continued to operate from our Florida office until March of 2009, when the decision was made to house both companies at the GP:50 facility located in Grand Island, NY. It was not the best time to make such a move as far as businesses were concerned. The economy was in a significant slump during 2009/2010 and many companies were cutting back and laying people off.
Since that time, we’ve experienced substantial growth through both market and product line expansion with markets including ground water, waste water, and general purpose applications, with our gauges serving these as well as industrial, oil and gas, process, fluid power and other markets. The last few years have seen a 5-10% growth with continued market penetration into Oil & Gas, HVAC, and OEM sales. Our geographical growth has significantly increased to both a nationwide and global reach, so that we now cover all 50 states as well as Mexico, Canada, Central and South America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and even Australia. Through continued market and product penetration, we expect to double in size over the next 4-5 years.
In conjunction with the quality and dependability of our products, our Blue Ribbon’s sales and service team has earned us the respect and loyalty of our customers. They know that, not only are we here for them, but that we stand behind our products with the high quality, competitive pricing, and customer service they expect as part of the Blue Ribbon Experience we provide. We invite you to take part in the Blue Ribbon Experience and see for yourself what Blue Ribbon products, sales and service can do for you.
For me, it was a beautiful challenge. To have come from being a regional manager for one company, to become a national sales manager of Blue Ribbon Corp, originally only a local Florida company – and now we’re an international company. It’s been 10 years and it feels like it happened overnight.
Altogether, I’ve been in this line of business for more than 25 years, and over the course of my life have developed a philosophy to which I attribute my growing success. It didn’t come from books, or listening to high-pressure motivational speakers. The development of my work/life philosophy began during my formative years. My parents owned a corner restaurant in Buffalo, NY, and Dad and Mom ran the business themselves. My dad always taught me that personal relationships are very, very important. I learned from him that you have to be able to trust people, work with people, and listen to people. My father sold products which people could buy anywhere, but they wanted to buy from him, because of the relationship he had established. I’ve brought that same perspective into my own life. Certainly customers in my field can buy gauges and thermometers anywhere – I learned from my dad, I have to sell “Me” – so customers will say, “I want to buy that from Jim.” I call it, “Relationship Selling.” In relationship selling, a sale is more than just telling about the “Features, Advantages and Benefits” of a product to gain the sale. It’s an opportunity to answer someone’s need or solve a problem. Your most important sense used during a sales call is the ability to listen. Listen to what a customer is saying. Listen for their needs or the problems they’re having and rationalize with them how your product can help. If you are really listening and not talking, caring about the person while being passionate about your product, you not only significantly increase your chance of getting the sale, but you enter into the opportunity of a relationship that is mutually beneficial and much, much larger than the product itself. Listening, caring, passion. These are key. Many of my customers who have bought my products over the years are people whom I consider my friends and not just my customers. I get the feeling that many feel the same way about me. Years ago, I worked as a cook in two different restaurants. I was with one for 10 years and then another, the Georgian House in Niagara Falls, for 15. If the Georgian House hadn’t burnt down, I’d probably still be there. I make the Blue Ribbon transmitter products. I do all the Birdcages® – anything on the shelf, really. The 211’s, the 311’s. My work is primarily on the industrial end. I started out building cans, which is entry level here. When they needed someone to do calibration, I volunteered. I’ve learned every step of the process so that today, I build the entire units from scratch, from building the can right through to calibration. Blue Ribbon is a friendly place. And considering it’s a smaller company, I think the benefits are great. They’re very flexible so employees are able to enjoy a good work/home life balance. It’s exactly one mile from my home, so it’s really convenient for me. I like my job. I’ve always liked working with my hands, so this has been a really good fit for me. It’s definitely high paced. I like a challenge like that, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it for 20 years! ~ End ~
Dedication to Quality
Email Us or call (877) 774-4751 or (716) 773-9300 (Outside US)
or find your Blue Ribbon Corp Factory Rep or Local Distributor using the links below.
GP:50 NY Ltd.
Blue Ribbon Corp.
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email brsales@blueribboncorp.com.
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to brsales@blueribboncorp.com.
