FORTY Years and Counting…

By Victor Pais, Founder and President of Business Development

This month marks SIGMA’s 40th year since its inception as a new startup. On behalf of Siddharth and myself, as SIGMA’s co-founders (with the late Mark Abrams) and Larry who joined us 35 years back, I wish to share a few reflections of our journey…

Many have asked me about the primary factors leading to SIGMA’s current success as a highly respected brand in the vast and growing AWWA industry. Is it our pioneering model of global sourcing? Is it our broad yet compatible product range? Our unwavering emphasis on quality? Our relentless customer service? Or the value we collectively assign to the strength of customer relationships at all levels or our equally close bonds with our manufacturing partners?

It is fair to say - ‘all of the above’ and then some!

As I reflect on SIGMA’s storied journey of 40 years, I attribute our success to the combined power of the following three holistic factors:

• SIGMA started with a deliberate and visionary realization of a lasting opportunity for globally manufactured iron casting products in the quality conscious and stable waterworks infrastructure sector. We identified and capitalized on the USA’s growing commitment to a clean environment, worker safety, and cost control.

• SIGMA grew with a constant and conscious commitment to the essence of its very meaning: ‘SUM of PARTS’. We started with just two of us and over four decades grew to our current 400+ global team, a synergistic product range, a strategic operational and distribution network, and a steady growth of our customer base matched by the expansion of our global supply chain and our entrepreneurial skills. Over the span, we formed and managed no less than twelve direct and indirect partnerships in the USA and overseas -- to support SIGMA’s growth including three successive ownership changes with Frontenac Capital, Fairfax Financial and Wind Point Partners.

• SIGMA sustained and endured the often challenging and always demanding journey through unwavering faith in our people, both home grown and new additions, trained and treasured as one diverse but close-knit family, bound together by one shared goal.

As we have recently embarked on the ‘SIGMA 4.0’ chapter, SIGMA is definitely tested, molded and prepared to respond to challenges and seize opportunities.

What makes us different makes us great!