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 Howard Raber, Raber Glove Manufacturing
PDG Nancy began her introduction of our speaker, Howard Raber, by relating her observation of an article in the CAA magazine about “garbage mitts” and the name of the company. She called Raber Glove Manufacturing and spoke with Howard, who indicated that he would be delighted to speak to our club. Howard was born and raised in Winnipeg and has been active since 1985 learning all aspects of the 3-generation family business. Howard’s grandfather came to Canada from Poland in 1924 and worked briefly as a janitor until a friend of his (whose company made gloves) hired him work as a glove cutter. In 1934 they realized that no one was making dress gloves in western Canada, so he and his partner successfully mastered the craft of making dress gloves and decided to go into that business, forming a company called Perfect Fit Glove, which manufactured 90% of the dress gloves for Eaton’s mail order customers between 1934 and 1941. When Howard’s father graduated from Success Business College and his grandfather’s partner’s son was coming into the business as well, Howard’s grandfather asked his partner to buy him out of Perfect Fit Glove (to avoid having to work with 3 partners) and Howard’s grandfather started his own glove company called Raber Glove in 1941. Howard’s father worked in the company from Day 1 and Howard joined the company in 1985, starting from the ground up, learning all aspects of the business. Over the years, the manufacturing process hasn’t changed much. They’ve taken an artisan craft and turned it into a medium-sized business. Only after about 22 years, when the oldest employee of the company asked Howard’s opinion, did he know that he had earned the respect of the staff. His staff is like family. The company makes all kinds of gloves and all of them are made out of leather, 100% bpought from Canadian suppliers. They make a lot of mitts and gloves for the Canadian military, for the RCMP, Manitoba Hydro, City of Winnipeg, and the province of Ontario. His company’s experience is that “From relationships comes business – it’s never the other way around!” One client claimed that he had a pair of Raber mitts for 41 years. Howard doesn’t take credit for that because he’s just perpetuating what his father and grandfather had started. Nancy said she saw the article about the garbage mitts in the CAA Manitoba magazine. The “garbage mitt” was an unlined pullover mitt that allowed the addition of the wool liner inside it. It was in 2012 that Howard bought the trade mark of “Garbage”, which he owns now. Sales of the garbage mitts have been phenomenal, notwithstanding the “garbage” adjective. Their biggest retail customer in Canada is Cabelas (now united with Bass Pro). Other customers include Arctic Co-Op, Northwest Company and many sales agents throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Ninety percent of the mitts is cowhide. The top quality of cowhide goes into making jackets, purses and luggage. Lower quality cowhides is used to make shoe uppers, then shoe lining, then sole leather. Thanks to the relationships that his father and grandfather forged, when Howard comes to work, “the orders just come!” Howard has trouble with the new way of doing business amongst youngsters because they are losing the art of interpersonal communication – “If you don’t email them, they’re not going to respond to you.” Even though he is the president of the company, he answers the phone and fills in doing whatever job needs to be done. The longest relationship that Raber Gloves has is with Scotiabank (80 years). Handshakes, your word, a glass of scotch together were the basis of business relationships at the time. When an agent came to Winnipeg, he didn’t stay in a hotel, he stayed at the business owner’s home. To end his presentation, Howard indicated that neither of his two sons are involved with the company business, but as long as he is able to find people to work in the factory, he expects to be able to run the company for another 25 years. In the Q & A that followed the presentation we learned the following: https://www.cabelas.ca/product/23282/raber-garbage-mitts-knit-cuff (Logos can be added to the mitts) Snowboarders love the mitt because it’s a good, warm mitt and it stands up to the tow rope – and many skateboard shops want to have their logos on the back of the mitt. Raber Gloves currently has 47 staff members. The current building (since 1964) consists of three floors and a basement, around 8000 square feet. Each generation of the Raber family had different strengths. However, all three – the grandfather, the father and now Howard – have the same answer to the next generation’s question about how they knew what to do when they made a decision to do it: “I don’t know – I can’t explain it!” Identifying the Raber glove as “Made in Canada” and “Made in Winnipeg” carries a lot of weight in the customers’ buying decisions. Howard claimed that there are three things to consider in business – “There’s quality, there’s price and there’s on-time delivery. If you want to be successful, pick two!” In Winnipeg, Raber garbage mitts can be bought at Cabela’s, all three locations of the Chamois Car Wash, CAA Manitoba, Forks Trading Company at The Forks. Leathers used by Raber to make gloves and mitts include the hides of cows, lambs and goats. Lloyd thanked Howard for his presentation and for representing the character, the business and families of Winnipeg. |
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President Doug, Chuck and Jack went out to Urban Stables earlier in the day to watch the instructors work with the 
8 students from Westgrove School that the club is funding. It is expected that there will be significant improvement in the student’s social interaction skills by the end of the 5 class un-mounted equine experiential learning program that the club has funded. The club has received a letter of thanks from Urban Stable for previous donations and collaborative partnership.
