On Aire Ep. 28 w/ Jack Clothier – The Art of Industrial Real Estate Podcast
🪵 Crafting Precision: B2B OEM Manufacturing, Generational Transitions, & High-Pressure Laminates with Jack Clothier 🎙️ Episode 28 of On Air with Team Jensen: The Art of Industrial Real Estate
In the twenty-eighth episode of On Air with Team Jensen: The Art of Industrial Real Estate, hosts Kurt and Stuart Jensen sit down with Jack Clothier, President of Laminate Works. Operating out of the Armourdale industrial corridor in Kansas City, Kansas, Jack shares his journey growing up in his father’s manufacturing shop—from sweeping plant floors at age eight to scaling a high-capacity, multi-state High-Pressure Laminate (HPL) component manufacturing operation.
🏭 The Origins of Laminate Works & Sister-Company Synergy
Founded by Jack’s father, Bert Clothier, in 1999 in Wichita before relocating to Kansas City in 2001, Laminate Works built its foundation on custom wood-substrate lamination and precision edge-banding. After years of running regional facilities across Texas and Missouri, the company strategically consolidated its footprint into a single, high-efficiency world headquarters in Kansas City, Kansas. Today, the operational torch has seamlessly transitioned to Jack as President, while his father transitioned into founding a complementary sister company, Metal Works, out of Belton, MO—offering clients a dual-manufacturing pipeline across both timber/laminate and custom metal fabrication.
🎯 Strict B2B OEM Alignment: The “Batch Size One” Philosophy
A key operational distinction setting Laminate Works apart in the industrial manufacturing landscape is its unwavering strict B2B focus. The firm sells exclusively to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and commercial furniture fabricators rather than end-users or retail consumers. Servicing markets across office, educational, restaurant, hospitality, and elevator cab interior sectors, Laminate Works operates on a “Batch Size One” manufacturing model:
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Custom Flexibility: Utilizing advanced CNC routing and automated edge-banding lines, the plant effortlessly shifts between high-volume runs of 800 identical work surfaces to specialized, short-run orders of 1 to 5 pieces without creating structural bottlenecks.
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Eliminating Capital Constraints: By outsourcing complex laminate component production to a specialized third party, furniture OEMs eliminate their internal machinery CapEx, reduce floor-space footprint liabilities, and reallocate internal labor back toward core assembly and marketing priorities.
🤝 Old-School Service Culture & Generational Torch-Passing
Reflecting on internal culture, Jack highlights the deep tenure of his management and shop-floor team, many of whom he grew up alongside over the past two decades. In an era where customer service has frequently been commoditized, Laminate Works anchors its value proposition in high-touch, consultative partnerships. Jack emphasizes that the true goal of industrial sales is not transactional execution, but solving operational pain points for overworked business owners—helping regional manufacturers reclaim bandwidth and life balance through dependable supply chain integration.
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