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Adhering to Integrity

How Pack-n-Tape's founder built and grew a national specialty distribution company.

by Kim Phelan

Nineteen years ago, Art Cerimele didn’t inherit the small but robust specialty distribution business he runs near Denver. He didn’t begin with partners, investors, or a bank, and no one hired him to come in and grow the advanced-beyond-its-time online operation. Nor did his No. 1 supplier and the very foundation of his company – 3M – seek him out to lead a revolutionary business model. Instead, the story of Cerimele’s Pack-n-Tape company starts with a lightbulb concept, his own two hands, and a support network of one: a wife who believed in him.

In 2005, at the age of 39, he had accrued about 15 years of distribution and manufacturing experience, including some door-to-door selling of tape and packaging products out of a sample case. For a long time, he had competed hard against 3M and watched them eat his lunch in nine out of 10 head-to-head sales calls. But by the early 2000s, he was selling for a 3M distributor, and that’s when he had an epiphany: His ticket to business independence was going to be as a 3M distributor like no supplier or distributor had yet conceived.

“This was my first peek behind the curtain of what this 3M company was all about after they had been kicking my butt my whole career,” said Cerimele. “Now I was finally selling their product, understanding more about them, and I studied that product line. I watched how they went to market with distribution and the end user – I took notes of the pain points distributors experienced and viewed them as opportunities. My thoughts were, if I was not distracted with competing lines, I could go deep and become an expert with the brand and add value to customers. I wanted customers to have the best possible experience, and that’s what I set out to accomplish.” 

Continuous training is one important tool in Cerimele's toolbox for building a strong, customer-focused culture.

WITS AND GRIT

Cerimele was newly married in ’25 and a new resident of Colorado’s mile-high city, transplanted from Northeast Ohio – and he was ready to brave the first step on his entrepreneurial journey. Months before arriving in Colorado, he met a local 3M manager for dinner and explained his idea for becoming a 3M online specialty distributor. But there were two problems: (1) his sympathetic listener wasn’t a primary decision-maker, and (2) Cerimele had nothing tangible to show anyone. It was time to produce an e-commerce website, and he embarked on constructing it himself.

“A friend of mine was in the e-commerce space with a different industry, and he told me if I had the time and the wherewithal to do the work myself and learn it, I would be better off in the long run. ‘This way,’ he said, ‘when it’s time to outsource and hire people, you know what you don’t know, and you’ll be able to choose the best partner.’

“It was a lot,” Cerimele continued. “There were months on end where I’m building this thing, I’m adding products, figuring out how I’m going to do this, and still I’m hoping this thing works out. I had a strong conviction of what I was pursuing, and nobody could talk me out of it. My 3M contacts back in Ohio championed the idea, and even though they weren’t the decisionmakers, they helped fuel my passion and perseverance.”

Fast forward about one year, a new baby, and one moving truck later, Cerimele sat down with a different 3M manager, this time at a McDonalds in Charlotte, North Carolina. He presented his website, a business plan, and some ambitious financial goals. “I promised I would purchase $150,000 in Year 1, $300,000 in Year 2, and $500,000 in Year 3. This time, they went for it – and I met and surpassed those goals.”

A team member participates in a hands-on 3M training.

GROWING AT THE SPEED OF CASH

Tenacity took him a long way, and while he says he had no safety net, he in fact had something better: a loving wife with a good job. Elizabeth Cerimele, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, bankrolled the fledgling distribution company with her salary, and eventually the couple followed their hearts back to Denver. Cerimele, an avid mountain biker who enjoys riding anything with wheels, was pedaling hard on the business to start turning a profit. “There was no way I was not going to succeed,” he said. “There was no stopping me – I was confident this thing was going to work.”

Almost 20 years into his business, Cerimele has never taken out a single loan for Pack-n-Tape.

“We only grow at the speed of cash,” he said. “Whatever money we were making, that’s what we used. We literally built the business one customer at a time. Every order was a big deal, no matter if it was small or large, and we hit all our financial objectives almost right to the dollar.

“We don’t carry any debt, and if we want to purchase something,  we have to have the money in the checking account,” he added.

“Whether it’s a new software investment, an expensive seminar, or a new marketing strategy, we don’t borrow the money. There’s nothing worse than making a risky investment or a bad decision that was financed – because it’s going to be the gift that keeps on giving! If an ROI does not pan out and we paid cash, it still stings, but it’s not going to sink us. This approach keeps us from trying things on a whim without careful consideration.

“Don’t get me wrong – we’ve spent a considerable amount of money over the years on technology, training, and strategies,” he added. “Some of it hasn’t panned out, but it’s always been paid for. We’re always trying new strategies, and we’re never afraid to spend money.”

Cerimele is intentional about tempered growth and a healthy work-life balance. Now 60, he says he could have grown the business faster … “But I didn’t want to be a divorced CEO!” he said. “And I wanted to be there for our son, who’s now 18.

“This is a crockpot recipe, not a microwave recipe,” he said. “The whole business has taken 20 years. That’s a long time. I know there are ways we could grow more – I have levers of growth I could turn on right now if I wanted to – but I don’t extend credit to just anybody, and I don’t take out loans. I decided I wanted to stay sane and still have a life right from the beginning.”

WHAT’S SO DIFFERENT?

Whereas most industrial distributors have originated with physical inventory and later add an e-commerce dimension to complement it, Cerimele flipped the script for Pack-n-Tape, which enabled him to instantly target a national customer base instead of a limited regional market.

“My model was to develop an online strategy first and then, when and if we could, we would expand into a more traditional path,” he said. “My idea was to create a hybrid model. There’s way more to it than someone just clicking and buying. It was a new way to build a relationship with somebody – talking on the phone, visiting them in person, sending a well-crafted email.

“Back in the ’90s when I was learning the distribution business, there was only a handful of people who were selling industrial products online. Early in that game, what was unique and different about us was that nobody was doing it –people were like, ‘You think someone’s going to buy that on a website and they don’t even know you?’”

Cerimele partnered with a com-pany specializing in customizable software and put his own creative spin on building his site in addition to keying all the original content. He was also very DIY with his advertising and became self-taught in Google advertising, SEO, and targeted marketing. “Even in its infancy, what we did was state of the art at the time.”

Today, Pack-n-Tape still focuses tightly on 3M products – tapes, adhesives, fall protection, and abrasives – as well as 3M equipment including a case sealing machine the distributor does well with. The company also sells noncompeting products including converted tape products, industrial filtration/purification, MRO consumables, and much more. The company has grown by double-digit percentages every year since its inception, except for 2025 when growth was lower than expected. For 2026, he says the company’s greatest opportunity lies in accelerated cross selling, also known as increasing wallet share with current customers.

In addition to aligning with a world-class supplier, Cerimele attributes his success to longstanding relationships with different vendors, which includes a vendor that protects the company from credit card fraud and another that enables Pack-n-Tape to maintain sales tax compliance. But the No. 1 foundation for his company’s success, he asserts, is getting the fundamentals right.

“That means when somebody leaves you a message, you call them back right away,” Cerimele said. “Or when somebody needs help with the problem, you get on it and solve it. Somebody sends you an order, you don’t screw it up – you fill it correctly and on time. You make sure customers are updated in advance on pricing changes. You’re communicating with them. You know what their inventory needs are. And above all, you’re being honest, ethical, and reliable.

“If something’s really not good, don’t sugarcoat it,” he added. “Just be honest and transparent with them. I think integrity is a big deal, and I think a lot of it’s been lost ever since COVID.”

The Pack-n-Tape team meets twice a day for playful combat on their industrial foosball table.

TREASURE IN THE TEAM

Cerimele says he values his employees and is committed to continuous training as well as nurturing a fun and supportive culture. The staff of five comprises an operations manager, a marketing specialist, an inside sales/customer support rep, a customer service/order entry person, and an accounting manager. Cerimele, who defines himself as the “big-picture guy,” also handles some of the distributor’s largest accounts.

Frequent training investments include sending staff to ISA and Salesforce conferences, 3M technical training, and sales tax compliance seminars, as well as inhouse lunch-and-learn group training in the conference room. Dave Ramsey’s “Entreleadership” program is among Cerimele’s continuing-education favorites.

“I’d rather spend money on an employee and they leave than not spend money on someone and they stay,” Cerimele said. “I want people to stay with us for the long haul, and I want to teach them and make them better for as long as they’re here. Being a small company, I have to keep it interesting for people.”

Fun is always on the front burner. Every day at Pack-n-Tape, the team convenes for friendly competition at their industrial foosball table at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. And once a month, they all go out together for a local pub’s trivia night. Comradery and the owner’s respect and concern for them as individuals have bred a mindset of excellence.

“Our team is obsessed with customer service,” said Cerimele. “We are always trying to anticipate what the customer needs are before they ask. And we have certain ways we talk to customers on the phone, and certain styles of writing emails, leaving voicemails, and creating text messages. We leave room for a team member’s personal touch, but after processing thousands of orders and interactions, we have lots of documented tribal knowledge on what works. And we still believe in sending handwritten thank you notes to customers.”

Two staffers traveled to a Salesforce conference - further evidence of Cerimele's commitment to investing in team training.

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of Industrial Supply magazine. Copyright 2026, Direct Business Media.

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