In an interview at his factory

SPE also said it wanted to bring a more international focus to the award, which it first gave out in 1983.

Scott Peters, the chair-elect of the SPE Mold Making and Mold Design division, said he recognizes that choosing a Chinese mold maker might be controversial among some in the North American mold making industry, given the cost pressures from China and the economic hard times the U.S. industry has faced in recent years.

But he said Chu was the unanimous choice of the selection committee because his vision fit with that of the Mold Making and Mold Design Division, of growing through technology and employee development.

“He’s not afraid to invest capital, whether human or financial, to make business relationships successful on both sides,” said Peters, who is the operations manager for home decoration firm Hunter Douglas’s Guangzhou, China, factory. “[Chu’s] ability to see that he needs skilled labor and is willing to foster that skilled labor really endeared him to the mold making and mold design division.”

In an interview at his factory, in Zhongshan, Guangdong province, Chu said he is focusing on employee training because labor costs are rising dramatically in the Pearl River Delta, the manufacturing heavy region bordering Hong Kong.

Chu said he raised salaries across the board 25 percent last year, after the local government in Zhongshan raised the minimum wage 15 percent, and announced plans to keep raising minimum wages for the next four years.

China’s central government is encouraging local governments to raise minimum wages to boost living standards.

Chu anticipates he will need to keep raising salaries to stay ahead of that.

“I think everybody doing business in China is facing the same problem,” said Chu. “We have to keep continually training our workers to work efficiently…Everybody knows it’s hard to find workers in the Guangdong area.”

One strategy to address that, Chu said, is an agreement Pacific Master signed with a local school, the GangKou Technical College, to have its students come to his factory for training. He wants to broaden that arrangement.

Chu gave that school 30,000 Chinese yuan (US$4,690) when he won the SPE award. The school also received 3,200 Chinese yuan (US$500), an honorarium made possible by a donation from the DME Co. in Madison Heights, Mich.

Chu said the agreement is not entirely about altruism, though. It also gives Pacific Master first crack at the best students, he said.

Peters, a veteran of the U.S. mold making industry and SPE, said the SPE judges also liked that Pacific Master created separate workshops to build larger, more open tolerance molds, and smaller, more precision molds.

Chu also recognized that he would need to differentiate his company in a competitive environment, Peters said, and developed the capability to make molds to the Class 101 standard, the highest level set by the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. in the United States.