Ribbon Mill History
L.A. Najarian, Inc. is a manufacturer of decorative ribbon
products and narrow fabrics for apparel, craft and packaging
applications. Located in Greene, New York, the company is owned
and operated by Dick Najarian. In 1983, Mr. Najarian reestablished
the family business founded by his father Leon Aram Najarian
in 1932, in the same building originally used to manufacture
silk ribbon for hat bands. Today, the once popular silk hat
band is all but gone, and the huge vault once used to store
the pricey fiber stands empty. However, L.A. Najarian now produces
custom-run narrow fabric ribbon for a wide variety of industries.
This product line serves customers from diverse markets including
retail packaging, home decorating, floral and craft trades,
clothing trim, publishing, medal ribbon, and hat making, among
others.
L.A. Najarian retail packaging products are found in malls
and catalogs across America, and have reached a world-wide
market as an adornment on high-quality retail products sold
by Godiva Chocolate, Nordstrom, Norm Thompson, Seagram's,
Harley Davidson, and Martha Stewart, to name a few. L.A.
Najarian trim also has a global presence on high visibility
garments worn by FedEx, American Airlines, and the U.S. Postal
Service. New home decorating trims developed in the last
year for Avanti have found their way onto decorative towels
in Bloomingdales, and other national bed and bath retailers.
The company is committed to serving customers with new custom
patterns and developing new markets. While many mills have
closed, unable to compete with Asian and South American imports
on price, Najarian has carved a niche in custom ribbon. By
avoiding commodity type products, and focusing on customer
service, quick turnaround, and custom design expertise, Najarian
has been able to stay one season ahead of foreign competition.
The tools of the trade are a very stable and dedicated workforce
and state of the art weaving machines. The custom nature
of the products demands workers who thrive on new challenges
-- the 14 employees average 12 years with the company. Presently
the weaving floor has 40 looms with a range of specialized
capabilities including 8 computer controlled jacquard looms,
wide looms up to 6", and plaid looms. The intricate
design work is aided by a CAD design system, which has helped
turn out new items from corporate logo ribbon to floral motifs
at a steady pace.
In December 2001, L.A. Najarian Inc. received the Chenango
County's Chamber of Commerce Small Business Manufacturer of
the Year Award. On January 22, 2002 the ribbon mill was honored
by a visit from U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer in recognition of
that award, and the vitality of small business to the local
economy.
From Echoes of the Past or Annals of the Town of Greene,
Chenango County, New York 1867-1967
by Mildred English Cochrane Folsom, Town Historian
THE L.A. NAJARIAN MANUFACTURING COMPANY
Go into any haberdashery in Canada, the United States or
South America and look over the array of men's hats - winter
felts or summer straws and Panamas. What intrigues you? Isn't
it the neat, finished look given by the colorful hatbands
on them? These rayon hatbands which trim the famous name
hats of Stetson, Adams, Mallory, Dobbs and others are made
in the Najarian Manufacturing Company in Greene. The same
bands go on hats sold in major department stores and chain
stores, such as the J.C. Penny Company and Sears, Roebuck & Company.
There is only one other hatband manufacturing company like
this in the entire United States (in Pennsylvania, it having
bought out all other companies), but the Greene plant is
the only one which designs its patterns. At the busy time
of year it is the Nation's top manufacturer of hatbands.
The present building on Willard Street was built on land
purchased from Hanford Smith in 1917, during World War 1,
by the Chenango Realty Company, a group of local men who
had raised $10,000 by subscription the year before, for a
silk mill to be operated by a firm from New Jersey.
At a
banquet held at the Hotchkiss Inn, in Oxford, in January
1918 the following employees of the "Greene Silk Mill" were
transported there by Floyd Knickerbocker in a large sleigh
drawn by 4 horses: Ethel Roney, Emma, Minnie and Alice Bates,
Lucille Langdon, Pauline Palmer, Edna Ingraham, Mary Bixby,
Eva Barnett, Ida and Rachel Cooper, Ruth McCullough, Laura
Boyce, Ethel Taft, Bertha Meade, Grace, Neal and Howard Elliott,
Howard Hitt, Ivan Winchell, Arthur Reif, and Superintendent
and Mrs. O.L. Smith. In 1919 there were 75 employees. This
Company remained here until 1921 and was succeeded by the
Scandia Silk Company, of Patterson, N.J.
The "Chenango
Ribbon Mill" was in operation here
in 1923, at which time the officers were: H.H. Karkjian,
President, and Joseph Najarian, Director. Sixteen year old
Leon Aram Najarian began work in the plant that year. He
had come to this country from his native Egypt two years
before and from New Jersey came with his family to Greene
to live and attend school. Little did young Aram think when
he took his first job that he was learning a trade of which
he would one day be the head, and in the very same building
that now houses his business. The Chenango Ribbon Mill went
bankrupt in 1924.
In January 1932 the Greene Silk Mill was
under new management with 32 looms in operation, each weaving
2' to 3 yards of silk per hour. A year later 60 looms were
being operated 24 hours a day, with 48 employees. Then in
May 1933 the plant suddenly ceased operations and moved away.
Apparently the four Companies operating the Greene Silk
Mill during those 16 years were hampered first by the war,
then by the depression which followed. But L.A. Najarian
was not to be discouraged by these ups and downs. In July
1932 he started a business of his own in Charles Mosher's
barn, back of his garage, on South Canal Street. When his
production outgrew that amount of space in 1935 he rented
the section of building on Matteson Street which later became
Ray Bates' Welding Shop, and the two buildings did business
24 hours a day. At this time he employed 6 people. He began
by making woven hat-bands, then added ribbons to his line
and later, trimmings. By 1937 the business had so grown that
again more space was needed, so he bought the vacant Silk
Mill on Willard Street and there combined his two smaller
operations.
Mr. Najarian was ambitious, an efficient worker
himself, and a good manager, and business steadily expanded,
with more looms and modern machinery being added as his finances
permitted. Today with his machines doing most of the work
he employs about 8 or 10 people during the busy season and
half that number during the slack summer season when the
last of the new sample ribbons are being run off for the
coming year. As Mr. Najarian explained to me, the 150,000
yards of samples now (in June 1961) being finished are for
the 1963 hat trade. The salesmen are already out on the road
getting the 1962 orders which will be made up as soon as
they are all in. Then business booms from early fall until
about February on the 1962 orders. The rest of the winter
and spring will be devoted to making up the 1964 samples
- all new patterns ribbons, each pattern in about 5 different
shades of colors. With orders varying for each pattern and
shade of pattern some looms will naturally be changed more
or less frequently than others.
The raw white synthetic yam
is bought in large hanks, or skeins, from New York and the
South, then sent to New York City to be custom dyed in some
300 shades and colors. Upon its return, each skein is placed
onto a rack from which it is run off onto huge spools to
be set into the looms to be woven into colorful ribbons of
many patterns.
It takes about two weeks to set up all 18
looms. Each loom is set to weave I yard of thread per minute,
or 10-12,000 yards of ribbon per day and each can weave approximately
40,000 yds. of ribbon with one loading. A cotton weft thread
is woven with the rayon grouping of warp threads so the ribbon
will keep its shape. An occasional metallic warp thread is
used for variation. After the thread is woven into ribbons
it is run onto large rolls, then re-wound on cardboard discs,
36 yards to each, and finally packaged for mailing to the
distributor.
The only manual labor involved while the looms are operating
is changing bobbins in the shuttles as they run out of thread,
so one operator can run a number of machines. Occasionally
a broken thread has to be mended by the operator but for
the most part the machines are on their own, doing painstakingly
accurate work so that the finished product is an exact replica
of the sample previously shown the customer and ordered by
him. There is probably nothing more fascinating to watch
than these giant looms at work, mysteriously turning out
miracles of perfection.
The distributor sells these ribbons
to jobbers, custom made for each hat manufacturer, who sells
to the stores and department stores. It is the jobber who
sends out the salesmen with samples to thousands of cities,
to find out what the buyers want, and the customer selects
from the buyer's choice.
Special orders throughout the year are for narrow ribbon
trimmings for ladies' shoes and dresses, gift wrappings,
braids and bindings for lampshades, furniture, etc. The Greene
plant had a contract during the Second World War to make
the pack strap webbing used for the harness of the combat
packs of the American troops. It also made the webbing for
bomb holders used for parachuting heavy bombs from planes.
The hatbands worn at the Republican Convention bearing the
words "I like Ike" were woven in the Najarian mill.
The plant has what is probably the most colorful stockroom
in the country. Tall racks filled with spools of thread of
every color imaginable are the hues of a rainbow, sunset,
or autumn leaves, and still does not include all the colors
represented. Mr. Najarian's sons Jack and Richard (Dick),
are now associated with him in the business.
Preparation: Warp Assembly
The raw material arrives in the form of cones of single thread
yarn. Multiple yarn cones are mounted on the creel, and each
end is threaded from a tensioning device through the comb and
onto a warp beam. The creel can accommodate over a hundred
warp threads (ends) which are fed simultaneously onto the full
width of the warp beam. A number of warp beams make up a set
with a unique layout for each pattern. A fully loaded beam
can hold 30 lbs. of yarn or over 10,000 yds of each of over
a hundred individual ends.
Factors for consideration in the warping department include:
The number of ends in the pattern and total yardage of the yarn
commitment
The carrying capacity of the warp beam to hold the number of
ends at a given yardage
The number of spaces to be utilized in production on the loom
The ground and edge warp conventions for the pattern design provided
in the warp chart
Proximity in the production schedule to other jobs utilizing
the same yarn material or setup conventions
Weaving Department
Machine Construction and Setup
All parts of the needle loom are mounted to a frame which occupies
a space approximately 3 ft. wide x 8 ft. deep x 8 ft. high.
The individual warp beams are mounted on a stand at the back.
The let-off motion for the ground and edge warps is regulated
with tension weights and brake ropes. An electric motor rotates
the main drive shaft operating the shedding motion, the weft
insertion apparatus at the weaving heads, and the woven fabric
take-up rollers. The filling (weft) thread and catch thread
spools are mounted on and fed from the upper part of the
loom.
Up to eight warp beams per loom space are mounted on a rack
behind the loom. The rope brakes and tension weights are set
in place, and a weaver is assigned to draw-in the machine,
or tie-in to a continuing setup. The warp threads are pulled
over a guide roller and each end threaded through a back reed
and the warp stop motion, which cuts power in the event of
thread breakage. Each end is individually drawn through healds
mounted on shafts, which accomplish the movement of threads
up or down in the shedding motion. The thread then passes through
the reed, with one to several threads in each dent, and finishes
by going through the take-up rollers.
Weaving
The woven fabric is created by the action of three separate
motions, affecting the relative position of the heald shaft,
weft needle, and the reed. The shedding, weft insertion and
reed motions run in sequence while a fourth, the take-up
motion applies constant tension.
In order to weave fabric by insertion of a fill (weft) thread
across the warp, the warp ends are positioned in either an
up or down position by the moving of healds. This motion may
be driven by cams, pattern chains, or a dobby depending on
the type of loom and pattern requirements.
Finishing and Blocking Department
The woven fabric undergoes final processing on the finishing
ranges. After passing through a water or starch bath, the
goods are dried to a smooth finish on heated drums, then
blocked on cores or spools for shipping. Additional services
in this department include heat-set finishing, moire finish,
hot foil stamp printing, strip cutting and packaging.
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