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Champion Fasteners: The Human Side
The executives at Champion Fasteners believe running a business involves more than just pushing profits and growing the bottom line.
Published April 2008
By Brian Salgado
The Champion Fasteners executive team – President Robert Santare, CEO Aldo Magazzeni and Vice President Stan Lippincott – understands what it takes to run a successful manufacturing company.
But, it also knows there is more to running a business than the bottom dollar, and that is why the team fully supports employees’ philanthropic efforts.
Magazzeni takes this attitude to heart and has traveled the world helping developing countries through Champion’s nonprofit organization, Traveling Mercies. Through the program, Magazzeni has traveled to Kenya, Afghanistan and Haiti to help build infrastructure for impoverished communities, with Champion Fasteners providing a bulk of the material, equipment and capital required to make these projects happen, he says.
“We all have a lot of different skills and life experiences, but the one we share is business,” Magazzeni says. “We also have individual and personal hearts, and that is who we are as people.
“We are three people that learn and share together and support each other with what is important. It is part of who I am as a person.”
About Champion
Champion Fasteners manufactures stud welding fasteners and specialty fasters primarily for the OEM market at its 30,000-square-foot facility in Mount Holly, N.J.
The company was formed in 1990 when Santare, Magazzeni and Lippincott’s former employer went out of business.
The company’s manufacturing capabilities include screw machines, punch presses, cold heading, thread rolling and CNC processes.
It operates a full in-house tool room.
Activist Efforts
Through Traveling Mercies, Magazzeni traveled to Kenya in 2006 with Jesuit priest Angelo D’Agostino to create a village for thousands of children orphaned by AIDS.
The Rev. D’Agostino awarded Magazzeni with a Medallion of Hope for his role in the building of the Kitui village and Nyumbani Orphanage.
While in Kenya, Magazzeni designed and installed the water delivery system for Kitui.
Previously, Magazzeni had spent parts of 2004 and 2005 in Afghanistan, where he also designed water pump systems before turning his focus to women’s rights.
This is where he met Suraya Pakzad, executive director of the Voice of Women Organization. After working together in Afghanistan, the pair now share their experiences in the United States.During Pakzad’s three-week visit to the United States to accept her Woman of Courage award from Condoleeza Rice, she and Magazzeni made a number appearances where Pakzad lectured Magazzeni displayed his photos from his travels as part of his “Traveling Mercies”
Post-Katrina Efforts
The company supports domestic communities. For instance, Santare guided the BCIT Foundation, which he chairs, to “adopt” the Harrison County School District in Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina heavily damaged the facilities there, which cater to hundreds of special needs students.
After Magazzeni spent three weeks volunteering in the district, Champion Fasteners sent supplies and $12,000 in new computers. “Life is bigger than just running a business,” Santare said in a statement. “Aldo, Stan and I try to get involved in the human side of things.”
Helping Out Locally
Within its own community, Champion Fasteners contributes to the Burlington County College Foundation.
It also offers a work/study program where local high school students will work as apprentices in the company’s facility for half the day and spend the other half in the classroom.“It is a very good tool for recruitment,” Santare says. “If they are not going on to college, they will look for other types of work. About 10 percent of our work force came through the school-to-work program.”
This article can be found online here.
