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November 11, 2024

Under 6th-generation leadership, Bevin Bros. Manufacturing returns to profitability, has ambitious plan to triple in size

HBJ PHOTOS | STEVE LASCHEVER Cici Bevin, president of storied Connecticut bellmaker Bevin Bros. Manufacturing.
By Harriet Jones
Click below for more information about Ceci Bevin and Bevin Bros. Manufacturing.
More Information

“I call this career 3.0 for me,” laughs Cici Bevin, the new president of her family’s storied manufacturing company Bevin Bros. Manufacturing.

Bevin, 61, is part of the sixth generation of her family to run this East Hampton company — the last remaining bellmaker in a rural Connecticut spot that was once dubbed Belltown because of the proliferation of similar businesses.

Though Cici Bevin joined the company in 2016, and has been a de facto leader since then, she’s just now formally been named president — the first woman to hold that title. She owns a 10% stake in the company, alongside her fifth cousin Matt Bevin who still owns the remainder.

Her tenure so far has brought the company back into the black for the first time in many years. She’s also launched an ambitious plan to triple Bevin Bros.’ size within the next decade.

“I have very long, deep roots in East Hampton,” she said. “Both my parents were raised here. I spent every summer here. I’ve always been proud to be a member of the Bevin family because of our history in this town.”

The history

Bevin Bros. was founded in 1832 by four brothers: William, Abner, Chauncey and Philo Bevin.

The company’s history intertwines with many famous names and historical events. It makes most of the bells that the Salvation Army bell ringers use to fundraise during the Christmas season. Good Humor ice cream trucks have been fitted with Bevin bells since the 1920s.

It was a Bevin bell that rang to open and close the New York Stock Exchange for decades.

Bevin also claims to have invented and produced the first bicycle bells. Hundreds of boxing matches — including prize fights involving Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali — were punctuated by the ring of a Bevin bell.

And it was also a Bevin bell that gave the angel Clarence his wings in the iconic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER
Bevin’s production foreman Abdirahim Hussein works with scrap metal created in the production of cowbells.

The company’s modern-day bestseller — by far — is a cowbell. The versatile three-and-a-half inch bell is stamped out on an old 1960s press on the shop floor and can be decorated in team colors for sporting events and political rallies, or adapted for novelty marketing ideas like a bear bell sold to hikers, or an abominable snowman bell for skiers.

The company has seen changes over the years. One of the most significant was the purchase of a business that makes metal cylinders for a range of industrial and scientific uses including calibration, filtration, fire suppression and medical oxygen. The cylinders operation shares shop floor space with the bell-making business, and now makes up 45% of Bevin Bros.’ sales.

‘Into the fire’

Cici is a descendant of Philo Bevin, and her father Douglas and brother Douglas Jr. both worked for the company.

However, working in the family business wasn’t her original career plan. She spent many years in sales and marketing, working with multinational brands including Lindt chocolate and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Then, after a stint running a nonprofit, she felt the pull of her family roots.

“It tied together very nicely my sales and marketing background because, to be candid, the previous iterations of this company for the last few decades have not had that background at all,” she said. “So, I could immediately jump in and add value in that way.”

She jumped in at an interesting time in the company’s history. In 2012, a disastrous fire caused by a lightning strike leveled Bevin’s original factory. Only the fortuitous rescue of the original bell dies from the ruined building — alongside $100,000 in state aid — allowed the company to continue.

Matt Bevin, then the president, is not a Connecticut native. Based in Kentucky and already a serial entrepreneur, he bought the company in 2011 from his uncle, who had been contemplating a closure, and kept it ticking at a loss for several years, enamored by the family history the factory represented.

Then in 2015, Bevin ran for and won the governorship of Kentucky. Enter cousin Cici.

“I just reached out and said, ‘hey, you might want another Bevin leading the company.’ And he was very pleased to have that happen,” she said. “I really never had a title, to be honest with you. When I first came, it was just sort of come in and do what you can do.”

And she had barely started her tenure when Doug Dilla, the man who had been running the company’s operations for some three decades, and held a lot of the institutional knowledge in his head, suffered a health emergency and ended up in a coma.

“So, I went from the frying pan right into the fire,” Bevin said. “I had about six months of a level of stress that’s really hard to replicate. It was a very, very steep learning curve.”

To add to the stress, Bevin’s marketing expertise occasionally proved challenging for a company that still relied on the old way of doing things, and has only around 25 to 30 employees, depending on the season.

The game plan

Her strategy has been to boost sales of specific bells by placing them in gift catalogs. Her first foray was with a boxing ring bell that she had featured in Uncommon Goods, as a potential man-cave holiday gift.

“The catalog dropped on November 1st and on November 3rd they called and they said ‘we’re gonna need 2,500 more of that bell,’” she recalls. All good except that bell is by far the company’s most complex and labor-intensive item, built of more than 20 components.

The same happened with one of the company’s most famous bells, the Christmas-themed ornament linked to the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Bevin again cut a deal with a catalog to feature the bell — this time on the cover.

The buyer had asked for an initial run of 2,500.

“Ultimately, they sold 15,000 pieces,” Bevin said.

To keep up with demand, Bevin said she personally drove bells across state lines — to Rhode Island and Massachusetts — to get them silver plated and engraved.

All of this activity has been reflected in the company’s financial results. According to Bevin, between 2016 and 2023, the company’s total income rose 86% while gross profit went up 195%.

And in 2018, she drove Bevin Bros.’ net income into the black for the first time in many years.

A blip followed during COVID, but she says 2022 was the company’s biggest year for revenues in recent history, and she expects 2024 to match it.

She declined to disclose specific numbers on financial performance.

‘Drive for growth’

Dilla, the former operations overseer, has now retired, and the production supervisor role is filled by Ben Favreau, who joined Bevin after a career with specialty engineered materials manufacturer Rogers Corp. in Moosup.

He and Bevin have been working together on several initiatives aimed at modernizing the manufacturing floor so that it can keep up with its new marketing reach.

Favreau has taken the lead on smoothing out production schedules so that the company isn’t strained every year by the inevitable pre-Christmas rush. The two have also brought in consultants to implement new smart manufacturing techniques, giving each employee new tasks or training to bring the company up to date with 21st-century practices.

“Seeing the drive for growth that both Cici and I have has been amazing,” Favreau said.

He has his eye particularly on expanding Bevin’s secondary cylinders business.

“The bells are the legacy,” Favreau said. “The cylinders are where the growth is.”

Rapid growth in that side of the business is one of the pillars driving a new plan that Bevin has dubbed Vision 200.

“What’s this company going to look like when we turn 200 in 2032?” she asks. “That’s eight years from now. … We have an aggressive plan that we’ve put forth to triple the size of this business in the next eight years.”

Another question she’s mulling — is there a seventh-generation Bevin that will step up to keep this business in the family? So far, she says, there’s no sign of it.

“Matt and I have acknowledged together, that’s kind of the next big thing he and I have to work out,” she said.

Cici Bevin

President

Bevin Bros. Manufacturing

Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics and English, Colby College

Age: 61

 

 

Bevin Bros. Manufacturing

Industry: Manufacturing

Employees: 25-30

HQ: 17 Watrous St., East Hampton

Website: bevinbells.com

 

 

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