Bill Kelman hadn’t a clue how to make or sell glass. The Scottish entrepreneur was living in Pittsburgh, running a steel fabricating business. In late 2004 he was merely looking to buy another building to grow business when he learned that L.E. Smith, a once venerable 97-year-old glass company, was being liquidated in two weeks. Kelman thought the structure might make a good acquisition. But as he walked around the factory – operating on a bare bones shift – Kelman was captivated by the craft as well as the workers’ passion and dedication. “The history, the method of production, the people,” Kelman begins. “I immediately thought this company shouldn’t be out of business. It dawned on me that this is a traditional American company that should continue.” And although no one supported the idea of purchasing the operation that’s precisely what Kelman did. “I like a challenge,” he smiles.

It was three years ago – in January 2005 – when Kelman rescued L.E. Smith from certain doom, and even today many industry folk aren’t aware that the Mt. Pleasant-based business continues in operation. That’s because Kelman has been quietly and patiently resurrecting this once formidable made in the U.S.A. institution. Rick Rimel has been a firsthand witness. Rimel started at L.E. Smith in 1992 when he was 18, one of many local kids who continued the tradition of their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers, making L.E. Smith a generational glass company. Rimel swept floors, scoured bathrooms, cleaned molds, helped on the docks, pulled glass from the ovens. The spirited teen learned every job on the floor, often staying after hours mastering various stations until he worked his way up to foreman one grunt job at a time.

Fast forward 16 years and the now 34-year-old Rimel is L.E. Smith’s general manager in charge of all operations. He’s practically starstruck about Kelman. “I had faith in him from day one,” Rimel raves. “He’s young and energetic and was eager to make the right changes. We got a good owner; we needed Bill years ago. The things he was interested in doing to turn us around were exactly what I said we should do everyday I was on the floor.”

So the Scottish savior – indeed Kelman rescued many area families by bailing out the bankrupt business – discovered himself in the glass business but with little idea which way was up. That quandary, though, failed to faze him. “This is a company that made the original Model T Ford headlight,” Kelman brags. “This product is important. This company is important. It’s made by hand in America by second and third and fourth generation glass people. That’s important. I knew we’d figure our way to making it profitable again.” Kelman quickly acclimated, but took his time getting things right before ‘launching’ the new L.E. Smith Glass Company. “We’ve rebuilt in a very disciplined manner,” he informs. “We’re long-term players. We’ve been under the radar the last couple of years because we had some work to do internally.” Even the centennial milestone was celebrated last year with little fanfare. (Except of course for the 30 staffers who were happy to have jobs and assurances that business is on a good and profitable trajectory.)

So why exactly was a Scotsman able to effect change in a century-old American-made glass operation where native sons were unable? Call it a no-nonsense, sound approach to business which included eliminating inefficiencies and focusing on skilled workers not administration and management. Kelman pooh-poohs any projected praise; it’s merely logical and level-headed business, he maintains. “L.E. Smith’s number one asset is its people,” Kelman says. “I listened to what they had to say.”

And that’s precisely why L.E. Smith has survived to ring in its 100th year. Hardworking men and women have constituted the bedrock of the business since its founding in 1907 despite numerous obstacles – ruinous fires, a great depression, ownership turnover, bankruptcies, low-cost imports, escalating energy costs. The L.E. in L.E. Smith might very well stand for Little Engine because this is one little engine that could. L.E. Smith has always been buoyed by a workforce that understands the meaning of hard work, beginning at the turn of the last century with Louis E. Smith.

The New Jersey-born migrant glassmaker and hobbyist cook held many jobs around the glass-rich western Pennsylvania environs, where hundreds of glass factories dotted the countryside. When Smith needed a vessel to contain the homemade mustard he sold with great success, a whole new business was born. While Smith might have been the name behind the business, it was the Wibles – brothers Charles and Walter – who were the brains and dollars behind the enterprise. (They chose to use Smith’s name because it was easier to remember than Wible.) It was the Wible family who assumed control of operations in 1911 when the itinerant Smith once again bolted for new horizons. Although Smith died in 1931, financially and spiritually broke – his last job was as a salesman for Westmoreland Glass where he headed the decorating department decades earlier – his name would forever be synonymous with American-made pressed glass.