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Emmitsburg Glass Company:
20 years of growth and community commitment

(5/15) It’s a big window-filled building that sits along Route 15 in Emmitsburg. Not too surprisingly, this glass-dominated structure is the home of Emmitsburg Glass Company. Once a small company consisting of four brothers and a brother-in-law, the company has grown into much more.

“For the first couple of years we did subcontracted labor, home-improvement jobs to create a paycheck,” said Dan Reaver, president of Emmitsburg Glass.

Initially the company was headquartered in vice-president Greg Reaver’s garage before moving to the Castle Farms building on Sixes Bridge Road. In those early years the company’s name was Emmitsburg Panes, which created a problem.

“Everyone thought we were a paint company,” said Anne Reaver, human resources director. So after 10 years, when the company started to take on larger commercial projects, the name was changed to Emmitsburg Glass Company and Dan and his brother Greg took over and moved into a new building on Creamery Way, which is now the home of W.F. Delauter & Sons.

“Our first real glass job as a company was the Sovereign Bank on Route 40 in Frederick,” Dan said. “Then we did a small shopping center in Washington D.C.”
Slowly, the company grew and after making it through a plateau that lasted a couple of years, the company started turning a profit.

“For the first 18 years the money went back into the business, making sure that all the employees got paid,” Anne said. “The owners (Dan and Greg) put themselves last, which has helped them sustain the business.”

Today Emmitsburg Glass Company employs nearly 100 people, most of which are “very happy,” Anne said, and the company has worked on jobs all over the region, including some major projects such as the University of Maryland’s Comcast Arena and several in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

In 2007 the company glazed three of Maryland’s top 50 construction projects, including the No. 1 top project, Harbor East Parcel B, according to The Daily Record. The Harbor East job, located in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, is approximately 1,078,000 sq. feet with an estimated cost of $232 million.

Despite the company’s growth and achievements in the commercial construction industry, the Reavers have maintained an attitude of putting employees and the local community first, which may be why the company still exists today, 20 years later.

“We keep safety in mind and have a decent salary and good benefits,” Dan said. “People like the small town atmosphere here.” And the company is committed to keeping that atmosphere.

“We’re very community conscious,” Anne said. “We grew up here and want to make sure it stays a nice place to live and work.”

The company moved into its new 53,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility at 100 Creamery Court in 2006. The project was awarded a Community Development Block Grant which funded infrastructure repairs to the town of Emmitsburg’s water and sewage lines. The repairs corrected a long-standing problem that had severe environmental impact. The Frederick County Business Advisory Council and the Office of Economic Development awarded the glass company’s headquarters as Frederick County’s 2006 Development Project of the Year.

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