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On the outskirts of San Benito County in the Aromas hills lies a quaint factory by the name of Fireclay Tile.
Though passersby may find its facade to be layered with dust and dirt and hidden by big rig trucks, they may be surprised to learn that inside the factory walls a myriad of tiles are being created: glass, ceramic, brick, handpainted, mosaic and custom.
Fireclay Tile’s clientele list ranges from common households to Starbucks, Marriott and Google; its projects include creating tiles for the 9/11 World Trade Center Memorial Museum and the Barack Obama Presidential Library.
“We get to do lots of really special projects with a lot of really interesting individuals; some of which we could talk about and some that we can’t,” Fireclay Tile CEO Eric Edelson told BenitoLink.
Edelson says he ensures each customer receives the same treatment as the next. “Every single customer that we deal with is unique,” he said. “Every project is unique and every order is made uniquely for them.”
Sal Quezada, a 12-year employee who started as a packer at Fireclay and is now vice president of manufacturing, said the 80,000-square-foot facility he oversees is “very customer-focused.”
“And it’s not just the end customer, or the people buying our tile,” he noted. “We have ‘internal customers.’ The rest of the production team treats the sample department as a customer because we want to deliver quality tile on time, and in the right way, in order for the customer to have a good experience—which leads to efficiency.”
Quezada acknowledges some of the 80 employees in the manufacturing department as he passes by. While giving guests a tour, he introduces each employee by name—first and last.
“I prioritize knowing each team member by name because it reinforces that everyone’s contribution is valued and essential to our success,” he told BenitoLink. “It aligns with the principles of servant leadership that I’ve embraced here at Fireclay, where building genuine relationships is central to how we lead.”
These principles of “servant leadership” have become the backbone of what and who Fireclay Tile represents.
Local history
Founded by Paul Berg in 1986, Fireclay opened in San Jose as a wholesale company, producing tiles for nearby shops and boutiques. After moving to Aromas in 1991, it continued with “no more than a few million dollars in revenue,” Edelson said. It had, at most, 30 employees between its two facilities in Aromas and Spokane, Washington.
By the time Edelson joined the company as Berg’s partner in 2009, he said the company was almost on its “last legs.”
“It had no money; it owed a lot of money and it had gotten a little bit sideways during the recession,” he said. The staff dropped to 19, he said, with “maybe five or six in Aromas. It was a very small employer in the county with kind of an old run-down facility there.”
So Edelson decided to make some changes to the company in 2013 after becoming CEO. Fireclay began direct sales to customers—architects, designers and homeowners and began offering Fireclay Clay stock options to all employees. The company is now 30% employee-owned. Edelson also made sure Fireclay became certified as a B Corporation.
“B Corp is a third party certification for for-profit businesses that do good,” he said. “So we think about our employees, we think about our community, we think about our environment and we think about our shareholders—as well as our customers.”
Fireclay continues to “do good” by dedicating 1% of its equity to nonprofit organizations, by becoming certified as climate neutral, and by giving 1% of its unused tile to nonprofits each year.
The Community Arts and Empowerment in Watsonville benefited from these donations when Fireclay provided unused tiles for the ‘Watsonville Brillante’ mosaic mural at Watsonville’s Civic Plaza Parking Garage. The arts group’s website says Fireclay provided 80% of the tile that was used for the five-year project which was recently completed.
The payoff of being a B Corp company does not go unnoticed among Fireclay employees.
“It’s a very California-culture kind of business,” Director of Supply Chain Michael Stern said. “It’s very sensitive about what its carbon footprint is. It’s very concerned about its employees—outside of just paying them—what their life really is like. This is my 12th job in my working career. It’s at the top.”
Fireclay has created a culture of caring and teamwork, Edelson said, where employees are called—and thought of as—teammates.
“We think about our employees, we think about our community, we think about our environment and we think about our shareholders, as well as our customers,” he said. “I’m Jewish. I went to a Quaker High School. I’m the son to a mother and the father of two daughters and husband to a wife. I don’t know. I just think I have a responsibility to do better.”
The Fireclay Tile factory and showroom are located at 521 Quarry Rd. in Aromas.
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