April 6, 2021

The third generation of family leadership at Falcon Plastics is official.

Jenn Barlund will assume the role of president, and Kyle Bender will assume the role of executive vice president. The cousins and partners in management of the Brookings-based manufacturer will be responsible for all aspects of the company’s performance.

“I am very excited to be named president,” Barlund said in a statement. “Falcon Plastics was created by the insight and innovative thinking of its founders, my grandparents, and has been built into what it is today thanks to years of commitment from our team members, stakeholders and family.”

Current owners and leaders of Falcon Plastics, Jay and Guy Bender, will remain involved with the business and will maintain ownership of the company. Jay Bender will serve as CEO, and Guy Bender will assume the role of chairman of the board. Neither plans to retire in the foreseeable future.

“Our goal has been to put in place a leadership transition plan that would allow us to seamlessly pass leadership to Jenn and Kyle,” Jay Bender said. “Considerable effort has been made to ensure the proper planning and training occurred for a successful outcome. We are confident we have achieved that today.”

The transition began unofficially in the past year during the pandemic, when the second generation praised the third for stepping up to lead through the upheaval.

“We are very excited about this transition,” Jay Bender said. “We are proud of Kyle and Jenn as well as everyone else at Falcon Plastics. We are positioned very well for continued success and feel fortunate that we have the chance to keep this a family-owned and -operated business that will continue to follow the values, principles and ethics that it was founded on in 1975.”

Falcon Plastics is a custom injection and blow-molding company, manufacturing plastic components for a wide variety of products. The company operates manufacturing facilities in Brookings, Madison, Tennessee and Oregon and has a partnership in Suzhou, China.

Take an inside look at the company’s history-making pandemic year below:

Next generation at family manufacturer learns on the job during disruptive year