U.S. Small Business Administration Names
A&R Tarpaulins, Inc.
Region IX
Jeffrey Butland Family-Owned Business of the Year
Santa Ana, CA – A&R Tarpaulins, Inc., headquartered in Fontana, CA and owned by the Wiesbart family, has been named Region IX Jeffrey Butland Family-Owned Business of the Year by the Santa Ana District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration. The company was established in 1976 as a partnership between Aundra Arrington and Ralph Wiesbart. Two years later, Ralph Wiesbart’s son, Bud, and his wife, Carmen, purchased one third of the company and are the current owners of A&R Tarpaulins, Inc. Bud and Carmen recently announced that management and ultimate ownership of the business would begin to transition to their son, Ken Wiesbart.
Region IX includes California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii and Guam. Winners are selected at the district, regional and national levels and compete against companies submitted by 68 SBA district offices across the nation. Alan Elgendy, International Trade and Procurement Consultant with the Inland Empire SBDC, nominated A&R Tarpaulins, Inc., a former client of the SBDC.
District Director, J. Adalberto Quijada announced the award saying, “The creativity with which Bud and Carmen have managed their family business demonstrates that it has passed the test of time, and we congratulate the family for their successes.”
A&R Tarpaulins, Inc., provides designed, engineered and manufactured products which are made either primarily or totally out of fabric for aerospace applications at competitive prices. A&R’s sales grew from under $200,000 in 1976 to approximately $3,500,000 in 2008. The company finds new fields and then capitalizes in its adaptation of current competencies into new applications. AR Tech, a wholly owned and managed component of A&R Tarpaulins, Inc, was created in the 1980’s as the company moved into more technical areas of designing and manufacturing products for aerospace applications. AR Tech addressed the needs for technical fabric products for Hughes, McDonnell Douglas, Rockwell and Lockheed. In the 1990’s AR Industries was established as another wholly owned and managed component of A&R Tarpaulins, Inc., to address requirements for architectural and consumer fabric products. A&R’s ISO policies, procedures and training guides, along with the mentoring and training of all employees through quality circle meetings, project planning and review of projects after completion have resulted in A&R receiving a Gold/Gold ranking by Boeing (100% quality and on time delivery), as well as Total Quality Supplier rating by Lockheed Martin.
Since the early 1980’s A&R has been certified as a minority-owned enterprise, and received Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) certification by the U.S. Small Business Administration in March of 2000. The SDB certification was renewed in 2003 and 2006.
A&R also believes in giving back to the community by creating a training and mentoring program within the company. At any given time, there are three to six student interns in the program, ranging from high school to college. Co-workers who started as interns are now serving as the company’s purchasing manager, reception/order-entry, production supervisor and engineering/quality manager.
A&R Tarpaulins, Inc., and other small business owners and champions will be honored at the 46th Annual Small Business Week Awards event on June 4th hosted by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in the Yuhaviatam Room at 777 San Manuel Blvd., Highland, CA.
For more information contact, Jennifer Hoff at 951-781-2345, ext. 246 or jhoff@iesmallbusiness.com