Success by Design

who created the machines that make our products. “We learned about the equipment and what we could do with it,” Scoggin explains. As a result, he says, they were soon “experimenting with new ideas and expanding our capabilities.”

Summer Kath, Cambria's EVP of Design, says that this search for new ideas was part of the Davis family’s plan since its earliest days. “From the very beginning, it was Marty Davis’ mission to innovate,” she says. “He challenged our engineers to improve the technology; they did and still are.”

Scoggin adds that both Marty and Mitch Davis have been pushing the ball forward ever since they played on their high school football team. “Using technology to push innovation forward is a Davis family tradition,” says Scoggin.

This focus on improving technology allowed for advances such as the design called Victoria™— Cambria’s sophisticated answer to granite—which was definitely a game-changer. “Nobody else had this product,” Scoggin boasts.

By 2003, Cambria was making other improvements, as well. For example, we opened our first design studio inside Minneapolis’ International Market Square. We began partnering with celebrities, including eternally light and lively model Cheryl Tiegs and Academy Award–nominated actress Mariel Hemingway. We hit number four on Entrepreneur magazine’s “Hot 500” list of fastest growing businesses. And even as we expanded our offerings with new designs, FabShops, and Galleries, we were also looking into new ways of serving our customers. We began to help people achieve their dream homes with funds from Cambria Financial Services and advice from our magazine Cambria Style We also officially introduced the world to Cambi, the distinguished little dragon that is still our mascot today.

Meanwhile, design remained at the heart of what we do. But good design exists at the intersection of what can be dreamed up and what is possible. “There’s both art and science to creating Cambria,” designer Kath explains. “The art can go in so many directions.” If a designer imagines something they believe customers will clamor for but that’s beyond our current technical ability, our production team explores ways to make it a reality. “We push what’s possible with technology,” says Kath. The inspiration process works in reverse, as well. New technology can enable our designers to expand their horizons. But whether the innovation originates on the design side or the production side, says Kath, “We aim to be different, yet always beautiful and highly desired.” offerings—even,” as Tendler points out, “in an industry where so many products are plain vanilla.”

Meanwhile, we never lost focus on the people behind the products. Just ask Angela McLain, Head of Samples Fulfillment. “When I started with Cambria in 2007, we had a team of about 20 employees,” she remembers. The company’s who’s been with Cambria since our early days. He vividly remembers the Le Sueur plant’s public grand opening party back in 2001. It was an unseasonably hot fall day, and Morton remembers he was sweating buckets and covered from head to toe in grease from helping work the grill to feed the nearly 1,000 guests who showed up. But Morton even found a way to innovate when it came to cooling down. “My wife ended up cutting my black dress pants into shorts,” he says with a laugh. The party was a rousing success, and both Morton and the plant are still important parts of Cambria.

This cooperational push to expand what’s possible with our new designs is also a point of pride for Cambria National Sales Trainer Mike Morton. “We are design leaders in the industry,” he says—also noting that “our competitors call their choices ‘colors,’ but ours are truly designs.”

But these designs are not just new for newness’ sake, Cambria Chief Sales Officer Arik Tendler emphasizes. They’re meant to help people feel more at home in the spaces where they live and work. “Countertops and surfaces are a powerful way for homeowners, architects, and interior designers to reflect their aesthetic,” he says. "So, in order to keep helping more people express their style, we keep finding ways to spice up our design success meant they soon needed more people and more room. “We grew 40 percent month over month and quickly outgrew the building we were in,” she shares. Yet, even as they expanded, McLain kept a watchful eye on the team. “It’s been fun to see everyone grow and change with the business,” she says.

That includes team members who have remained incredibly loyal, among them Joe Lawrence (with Cambria 13 years), Lynne Maczkowicz (14 years) and Becky Leeper (18 years). “I don’t think we’d have it any other way,” McLain says with evident pride.

And, as tends to happen when team members stick around for a while, they’ve amassed some unforgettable company stories. That’s definitely true of Mike Morton,

Today, it feels like we are living in the future that all of this innovation has been propelling Cambria toward. We are a truly international company. We created a feature film called Legend of Cambria, which weaves a fantastical origin story for our brand—based on Celtic mythology and narrated by global superstar Colin Farrell. We’ve even purchased our own quartz mine, which promises our products will be crafted from the highest-quality quartz on the planet for centuries to come. Exciting partnerships with other innovators have also opened new avenues, such as the new Cambria designs now available exclusively at industry leader The Home Depot. We even had monumental success last year in the midst of the pandemic—as we observed our milestone 20th anniversary, in part by rolling out 20 new designs. And that march toward progress will keep on going. We’ll be offering new designs each quarter in 2021 and even more in the future. “We have more innovating to do,” Kath says. “Stay tuned to 2022 because we have some pretty special unique, artistic collections and finishes coming your way.”

McLain notes that Cambria’s ever-expanding selection will continue to set us apart. “We are always bringing something new to the table. We are always relevant in any space. We have something that works for everyone,” she says. That “working for everyone” begins with valuing our employees—encouraging them to learn and implement innovative technology, to dream bigger when it comes to design, and to keep expanding to ensure excellence in interactions from sales to installations. And ultimately, that work helps every Cambria customer be more creative. ✦