Nameplates started in 1870 and has been in business for decades as a provider of high value identification products. Founded by Axel Edmund Mellgren in St. Paul Minnesota, the company continues to deliver a variety of nameplate products to suit all customer needs to this day.
Today, the fourth Mellgren generation, Jerry, Ed III and Alex operate a highly diversified company. As St. Paul Stamp Works continues to serve its clientele, the company can fill any customer’s order, from a single hand-engraved seal to thousands of computer generated nameplates. The company’s catalogs and telemarketing system reach a nation-wide network of customers. Its products touch almost every aspect of daily life. Axel’s one-man shop has grown to a company of fifty employees and is still growing. Meanwhile, the fifth Mellgren generation has worked here since September 2003 and is a dominate member of the management team.
St. Paul Stamp Work’s success is reflected most notably in the mutual respect among Mellgren family members and their employees. John Mellgren credits Ed II, Alex and Jerry with “doing a superb job in taking what it was and making it grow and bringing it into the modern world of computers.”
Ed Mellgren III attributes the company’s success to its employees. “St. Paul Stamp Works could not be the company that it is without the support and hard work of its employees… without the special talents and support of all these people we could not survive in today’s competitive marketplace.”
Dick Voss, who now has been with St. Paul Stamp Works since the 1950s, remembers sharing pleasant company picnics with co-workers at the Mellgrens’ rural lake cabin. Dick feels that the company is like a big happy family. “Most of the people here are so intertwined with each other outside the place, too, that we are all kind of like a family.”
In one way the company, with its Scandinavian family heritage, has come full circle. In the tradition of Swedish patriarch and master engraver, Carl Magnus Mellgren, St. Paul Stamp Works hand-engraved the plaque that was presented to King Olav V of Norway when he visited Minnesota in 1975.
The company uses a variety of manufacturing methods from digital printing, etching, embossing and more to create high quality products that can be used for any occasion. Coupled with a commitment to excellence, Nameplates aims to meet all product quality standards and exceed the expectation of its customers.