With the arrival of 2026 we celebrate our 45 th year in the plastic business. What started out as a great idea back in 1981 was indeed a great idea. We obtained the first patent on floppy disk boxes. This first box was created for an Ottawa, Canada, school board that had just bought one of the first Digital Computer minis with 8" floppy disks. Handcrafted out of Plexiglas with my brother in his basement as a favor to my employer soon became a flood of demand. Within months, we were making boxes for the 5 1/4 floppy.
Orders were pouring in faster than we could make them. We wasted no time in applying for patents and orders were coming in from all over. I still remember the day my brother, who was managing production, came into my office and pounded on my desk, saying, "if one more order comes in I'm leaving," and he was dead serious. We were just inundated with orders. The "Floppy Filer" was born and so was our journey into the plastics business.
Through good times, bad times, good partners, bad partners, crooked partners, it was truly an experience of a lifetime that lasted 40 years. We were extremely successful in raising what was then a huge amount of capital and obtaining the finances necessary to open one of the first CNC injection molding facilities in Canada. We were fortunate to receive a huge amount of press both locally and internationally, from the front page of the Toronto Star to the Wall Street Journal. This was instrumental in our marketing success and signing 10 million dollar distribution agreements around the world.
Our basement operation had become a world leader in magnetic media storage with dozens of products. Like all good things, nothing lasts forever; the magnetic media industry soon became history, and the CD's started taking over the market. Along with the world, we had to shift our market and manufacturing. In the early 1990's we were busy designing and developing new products for the computer industry. During this era we were still busy with the 3 1/2 Disks. Many disc manufacturers were demanding new and innovative ways to sell, market, package and promote what their dying industry was. Our Company developed some of the most innovative products for the 3 1/2" disks as you can see in our gallery on the right.
The early 90's also brought on the sports card craze. We had just finished developing a new thermoforming process for deep drawing a custom 3 1/2" box for Kodak diskettes. This was an impossible process but after 3 months of R&D and 3M's assistance, we succeeded in producing a diskette box that was both a packaging and a functional box.
After viewing the nightly news and seeing people digging out their old baseball cards that were now worth a fortune, I quickly realized that our new deep-drawn process would be an ideal process to design sports card boxes. I worked all night doing rough sketches and the next day handed the drawing to our industrial designer. His first question was " what is it" I just replied, don't even ask, just get me a prototype plug made in 3 days.
Sixty days later, we had hit the front page of the business section of several national newspapers. The "Premier Card Filer" was born. In that first 60 days, we had sold over a million units. The plant was operating over capacity 24/7 filling a tractor-trailer every shift. We were serving customers like Woolco, Walmart, Costco, Macy's, Disney, Toys R Us, and even the US Armed Forces with servicemen collecting cards all over the world. We had distributors around the globe supplying local card shops everywhere. A year and a half later, with manufacturing facilities in Ottawa, Toronto and Florida, we saw the market shifting and prepared for changes and changes came. The sports collectible market was crashing fast.
We continued manufacturing all these products in smaller numbers and along with the computer products, medical and culinary plastics all at a much smaller volume as we entered into a recession. But again, like all good things, the market came and the market went, but in all cases, each market is still alive and well but the fad is over. Along the way we gather knowledge, experience, savvy, techniques, business acumen and that is what we pass on to our customers every time they ask, "I need something like this, can you help", Yes we can.
Today in 2026 we are going to set the marine world ablaze. We are introducing the RIB-Sleeve. , this is not me to the product. The Rib-Sleeve is unique; we are alone in developing not only a new product but an entirely new market. Stay tuned for the release.
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In 2026 Micron is also forging into new territory by merging with Pixl imaging and Pixl graphics providing indoor signs, graphics design, CNC Vinyl cutting, and wide format printing. This will also give us new opportunities in the marking industry with pad printing, screen printing, CNC Engraving, Hot foil stamping, Laser Cutting and Engraving, 3D Scanning, and 3D Printing with our new venture 3D Pixl.com.
