When Jim Kacmarcik needs to reignite his passion in his role as the chairman and chief executive officer of Kapco Inc., he thinks about his late parents. His father started the business in 1972 with just one employee – his wife.
“I learned the business from my dad. I worked the presses, I worked in the office, I learned his work ethic, his entrepreneurial spirit, and importantly, about how he treated people,” said Kacmarcik. “I’m reignited when I think of all the challenges my parents had to overcome and how they continued to grow through it in tough times, and I’m so proud of how through it all my dad’s main focus was on taking care of his employees both professionally and personally.”
It’s a big reason for the creation of the Kacmarcik Center for Human Performance and the way the company provides its employees an opportunity to become the best version of themselves, said Kacmarcik. “I’m a big fan of lifelong learning and encourage our teammates to learn new skills throughout their careers,” he said.
Kapco Inc. is a premier contract manufacturer of metal components, trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands to make precision metal parts. With specialties ranging from stamping, fabrication, welding, and other metal fabrication solutions, Kapco continuously invests in cutting-edge technology and equipment that help deliver the highest quality products to their customers.
Since he took over the family business as president in 1999, Kacmarcik grew the business more than 20% year-over-year. He added die building, fabrication, laser and CNC operations. Work continued to flow, and the plant began a second expansion effectively doubling its size in 2015.
Under Kacmarcik’s leadership, the firm expanded its customer base within military contracting, construction and industrial equipment, recreational vehicles, automotive, generators, whitegoods and lighting industries. With more than 600,000-square-feet of manufacturing space in Grafton, Osceola and St. Croix Falls locations, Kapco has grown to nearly 600 employees.
“Jim’s goal is to enable every person – from new hires to tenured employees – to develop their full potential and become the best version of themselves by empowering employees to deepen their industry knowledge, job skills, professional capacity and personal well-being,” said his staff. “Allowing each and every person to become the best versions of themselves so they in turn can make an impact on others, is his mission at Kapco.”
Both Kapco and Kacmarcik personally have received a variety of notable awards, including supplier of the year from customer BAE, the 2023 NAACP of Ozaukee County 2022 game changer in economic sustainability award, and an honorable mention for corporate university of the year 2022 from Corporate Learning Network.