General Carbide Featured in Summer 2010 Issue of Management Today Magazine
Greensburg, PA, August 1, 2010 - General Carbide Corporation, a manufacturer of
tungsten carbide tooling for a variety of industrial applications, was the subject of a company
profile in the Summer 2010 issue of Management Today magazine. The article, written by Alan
Dorich, is titled "Taking Great Care: General Carbide Corp. President Mona Pappafava-Ray says
she looks out for the welfare of her employees." The text of the articles follows.
Family owned and operated General Carbide Corp. is in a class of its own, President
Mona Pappafava-Ray says. "We are, by far, the carbide company that provides the broadest
range of products to our customers," she declares. Based in Greensburg, Pa., the company manufactures
tungsten carbide preforms and blanks for wear, cutting and metal-forming operations.
Pappafava-Ray's father, Premo J. Pappafava, started the company in 1968, and today, General
Carbide employs a staff of 170 and serves clients around the world.
In addition, Pappafava-Ray's mother and sister, Lorraine and Marcy Pappafava, sit on the board
of directors. Although General Carbide is a family business, Mona Pappafava-Ray asserts that
she and her relatives do not manage it like one. "I've seen family businesses [that do not] do well
because they run their business unlike a business," she says. For instance, she says, owners of
some family firms will take money out of their companies for personal reasons, "which is
irresponsible, and long term, will destroy the jobs of the people within the company," Pappafava-
Ray says.
Part of the Industry
Pappafava-Ray joined General Carbide 24 years ago. "In some ways, it was inevitable
that I would be a part of General Carbide - but, in fact, it was not always my intention to work in
the hard metals industry," she says. However, Pappafava-Ray instead chose to study industrial
management at Carnegie Mellon University as she worked at General Carbide. "When I was in
college, I started running the General Carbide South Carolina plant and doing the accounts," she
recalls.
After graduating, she joined the company full time and has been its president for 17
years. Although some would perceive the hard metals industry as a challenging one for a
woman-owned business, General Carbide doesn't encounter any unusual challenges. "I don't
think we've experienced any more challenges than any other [business]," she says. "I often get
asked, 'What's it like to be a woman in the hard metals industry?' and I always say, 'I don't
realize I'm a woman in the industry.' I never think about it, maybe because I look out and I see
male faces and so it doesn't occur to me that I'm different to them, because I always look out and
see the same thing." Pappafava-Ray notes that the strongest influence on her management style
was her late father. "He worked his way through school [and] started the company with nothing,"
she recalls.
Pappafava was extremely generous to employees in hard times. "When people needed
him, he was there," she recalls. "My father did care how responsible he was for the lives of the
people we employed."
Pappafava-Ray strives to continue this approach under her leadership. "These people are
really important to me," she says. "I say to people, 'When you have a problem, you talk to me.'"
For instance, when one supervisor was diagnosed with cancer, General Carbide continued to pay
him, even when he missed work for treatments, and up until he passed away. "We don't believe
in making anyone's life more difficult," she says.
Pappafava-Ray also has maintained close contact with her employees as General Carbide
has coped with the economic downturn. After the stock market crash, Pappafava-Ray assured her
employees that the company was financially stable. "In that point in our life, we did not have one
penny of debt," she recalls, adding that she also made the promise that she would hold onto the
company's workers as long as she could. "I did not lay off a single direct or indirect person."
To ensure this, workers took pay cuts, but Pappafava-Ray took the largest cut of all and paid her
own expenses. In addition, "We cut back on hours on the floor, we stopped 401(k) contributions,
[and] as things started to come back, we started to reinstate the hours," she recalls. At the end of
2009, she says, General Carbide started reinstating regular pay. As of July, the company
reinstated its 401(k) defined contribution plan. "We stuck in there together," Pappafava-Ray
says.
Exciting Future
General Carbide is enjoying a surplus of work, Pappafava-Ray says. "Because we
continued to focus on capital expenditures and sales and marketing during the downturn, I
continued to tell our sales people to visit the customers and potential customers during the recession,"
she says. "All we wanted to do was to cut down the high grass so they could find their way
to us when conditions improved."
She notes that the company also is enjoying international growth. The company has
grown its international reach with the acquisition of General Carbide Europe, based in the United
Kingdom. Although the firms were not connected, "We allowed them to use our name,"
Pappafava-Ray remembers. "They're now called General Carbide UK."
In addition, the company added sales representatives in Idaho, China, Korea and
Germany. Pappafava-Ray adds that she is quite confident about the company's future. She notes
the company plans to start strategic planning later this month. "I'm very excited," she says. "The
brass ring is within our grasp, and all we have to do is reach up and take it."
About Management Today
Management Today magazine profiles top-level executives - CEOs and owners among
them - at public and private companies in the United States, Canada and Mexico who are
making a difference in their industries. Management Today is published by Chicago-based
Business Media Publications (www.managementtoday-magazine.com).
About General Carbide Corporation
General Carbide Corporation manufactures more than 50 grades of tungsten carbide
tooling for a variety of cutting and metal forming applications. The company was established
more than 40 years ago and is headquartered in Greensburg, PA, near Pittsburgh.
General Carbide employs more than 170 people and has annual sales in excess of $20 million.
For more information, contact Tom Shearer at 724.836.3000, x113 or
724.493.2436 (mobile). E-mail trshearer@generalcarbide.com or visit
www.generalcarbide.com
