Collective Manufacturing
“I felt like we were an extension of each other’s businesses. Like, hey, we’re going to go do this together.”
Collective Manufacturing is a fast-moving, buy-and-hold manufacturing group founded by partners Mark Hillenburg and Matthew Ritchie, with financial backing from Elmore Companies.
Both founders bring deep, lived experience in machining, operations, and multi-site leadership giving them an edge over traditional private equity buyers who often lack shop-floor fluency. Their mission, which is shared by “the money” is simple but rare in the M&A world: protect the legacy, people, and long-term viability of the shops they acquire.
In the first year alone, Collective acquired three companies, far exceeding their original plan of buying one or two per year. These include Simson Kovacs (August 2024), Kessington Machined Products (2024 acquired out of foreclosure and reopened with 30-35 rehired employees), and Columbia Manufacturing (April 2025), each selected because of their strong fundamentals, skilled teams, and long-term potential.
Measured improvements and feedback from the team at all three locations were exceeding expectations, and their biggest name customers were already sending off-book acquisition opportunities to Collective to keep strategic suppliers out of the hands of short-term, profit-maximizing private equity firms, early proof that the model was resonating in the market.
The Challenge
Collective Manufacturing’s Old Website
Collective had two major brand problems. First, the image and message they were showing to the outside world paled in comparison to the rich, human-first culture they had established and envisioned growing into the future.
Their website had generic stock images and a techy cool design and color palette which signaled professionalism, stability, and credibility, but that was only half the story. The headshots of Mark and Matt had them dressed up in suits standing on a city street instead of a shop environment and attire, completely contradicting their true origin story which was one of the key things that set them apart.
They had a nice logo and the perfect tagline–rooted in legacy, powered by progress–but they were using both together in too many places instead of using prime website real estate to hook their audience with the vision and make them want to keep reading. And they were using a lot of uncommon acronyms, jargon, and generic terms like “business owners” and “companies” instead of specifically naming shop owners and machine shops.
To summarize the main problem, the Collective Manufacturing brand didn’t make people feel anything. For a company whose primary differentiator is people-first ownership and legacy protection, that emotional gap was a real problem. The story was powerful from the start, but the brand wasn’t showing it. Mark summed up the gap better than we could:
““When you talked to people within these organizations, you could feel it and sense it, but nobody outside of our four walls at our locations could feel it.””
The second problem was that they had no easy way to bring new acquisitions into the brand. They had simply tacked their logo onto the existing websites for each of the acquired companies. The scattered brand execution was failing to adequately communicate their big vision to future sellers, employees, OEMs, and supply-chain partners, and why they should want to hop on board.
Columbia Manufacturing Old Website
Simson Kovacs Old Website
Kessington Machined Products Old Website
The Solution
To help “M&M” realize their big vision of becoming the acquirer of choice for small to mid-sized manufacturing companies, the employer of choice for top-tier talent, and the supplier of choice for precision machined components, Collective Manufacturing needed a Radical scalable brand.
We started with three days of filming, one at each of their three locations, capturing day-in-the-life footage and images of their team, equipment, processes, and products. We interviewed key personnel with a goal to capture the big vision in the words of the founders along with stories that illustrate how that vision is playing out in real life.
We talked to a former owner of Simson Kovacs along with the two guys running the show now, both of whom started decades ago on the shop floor, to show what a win-win hand-off can look like. At Columbia, we heard from a grandson of the original founder who still works there in the quality department and told us how happy his family was to know their patriarch’s legacy was in good hands. We got the skinny on what went down at Kessington from key personnel before Collective swooped in to recover it from foreclosure, and what it meant to Mark to get this second chance with “the one that got away.”
From there, we created a complete brand framework that embodied their “rooted in legacy, powered by progress” tagline and their real-life personalities. We wanted it to feel retro and modern at the same time. Like an 80s arcade game. It had to look professional and grounded while bringing that warm, human-first mindset to the forefront. Above all, it needed to be the exact opposite of a corporate-y private-equity brand.
And we nailed it, if we do say so ourselves!
The resulting identity kept the recognizable pieces Collective was already using while bringing in a much warmer, human feel. The retro-modern visual system gave the brand historical depth and personality without losing the seriousness required for a company serving aerospace, defense, energy, and other demanding industries.
Then we transferred that vision into one scalable Squarespace website, keeping individual landing pages for Columbia, Kessington, and Simson Kovacs featuring their unique histories, capabilities, and best-fitting work. When they make their next acquisition, they now have an easy, repeatable template instead of triggering another disconnected website project.
We carried the brand into sales tools to help Mark and Matt sell the vision including a slide deck, business cards, brochure, swag, and social media profiles.
Most importantly, we moved the project at Collective speed.
“When I decide I want to go get something done, I want it to be done well and fast. And I feel like we’ve done that in this together.”
The Result
Collective now has an authentic brand with the sales and marketing tools needed to keep growing and making an impact on communities that rely on small legacy shops.
When Mark and Matt saw the finished brand, their reaction was exactly what we were going for: pure awe and excitement.
“I never would have come up with this color palette but I love it. You guys have done a really good job of building something that I think we’re going to be really proud of.”
Mark followed with the piece that mattered most:
““It really shows what a day looks like within one of our organizations.””
Anyone can see that they’re not a soul-sucking M&A group or a corporate boardroom lording over three disconnected shop floors. They’re real manufacturing people who want to build a permanent home for good shops, and they’re inviting more humans who care to become part of the future they’re building.
A shop owner can see what will happen to the legacy they spent a lifetime building. An employee can see opportunity instead of fearing the worst. A customer can see how being part of Collective makes their trusted supplier even stronger. And the Collective team has an easy process for bringing their next acquisition into the fold.
As Mark said, “When you find the right partners, it's multiplication, not addition.” We proved that with this project and we couldn’t be more proud.
Has your shop outgrown your brand?
Are you embarrassed to send leads to your website? Stuck saying yes to whatever jobs land in your lap? Not quoting or winning enough? Struggling to find workers? Or just wanting to grow? Book a 15-minute call HERE with Emily to identify your Radical brand opportunities and find out if our BS-free process can help.
Learn more about our Radical process HERE.
