Legacy Brands Become Modern Communicators

Education is the highest form of marketing. Shannon Maverick sets on out on a quest to speak with business leaders from around B2B to better understand how they are utilizing education with their customers.

 

When thinking about the most innovative companies around today, we tend to reflect on those that have made the headlines within the last ten years, have recently gone public, have links to Silicon Valley, and so on. But perhaps more extraordinary are those companies that have been around for more than a decade, maybe even ten decades or more. These are companies that have endured major global and national events like the first and second World Wars, the Great Depression, the beginning of air travel, let alone the invention of the television or even the internet. But these companies haven’t just muddled along hoping to survive. They are companies that have reinvented themselves multiple times over the years, evolving through acquisitions or other business transformations while leveraging both resilience and a willing to adapt to stay in pace with the burgeoning landscape, the latest technology and ever-changing consumer habits.

One such company is Worthen Industries. Founded in 1866 as a one-product adhesive formulation company, by remaining at the forefront of innovation, branding and marketing, today, the company offers fifteen industry-leading Business Units with worldwide operations employing over 250+ employees while boasting an impressively large portfolio of patents.

On this episode of MarketScale’s Maverick of Marketing podcast, Steve Adams, Worthen Industries’ Business Manager, sits down with host Shannon Maverick to discuss the company’s history, their market-focused, eco-conscious, customer-centric, community-oriented business approach, as well as their extensive experience and diverse capabilities spanning a wide range of Business Units—Adhesive Coated Products, Film Laminating Adhesives, Performance Coated Fabrics, Printable Fabric Solutions, Extruded Films, Staple & Nail Products, and more—in particular, the sector Adams’ oversees: the Foam Fabricating Adhesives group, which designs, manufactures and provides adhesive solutions for foam fabricating applications, i.e., the bonding of cushioning materials found in mattress and furniture manufacturing operations.

“We’re very diverse, but where I think we were very successful at our marketing approach was by becoming more market-focused and not so scattered in our approach to any particular market.” Adams additionally remarked, “We’re always looking to provide sustainable innovation. These opportunities come up either through safety issues, environmental issues, process changes within facilities, or new products that are developed in the market that create challenges that need to be addressed. So, the result of all that is we’re not just making an industry-leading product—we create solutions that ensure that our customers’ processes, their product quality, their efficiency, and very importantly, their environmental practices are optimized.”

Listen to Previous Episodes of Maverick of Marketing Right Here!

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

farm
The Business Case for AgTech: Better Data Is Key to Managing Risk on the Farm
April 23, 2026

Farming is under more pressure than it’s been in years. Costs are rising, prices are unpredictable, and every decision carries more weight than it used to. What many still think of as a traditional industry is quietly evolving, with more farmers turning to digital tools to manage risk and stay competitive. It’s not about chasing…

Read More
pre-clinical
From Classroom to Clinic: Pre-Clinical Talent Steps Into Healthcare’s Hard-to-Fill Roles
April 23, 2026

Healthcare systems are facing a workforce crisis that’s no longer temporary—it’s structural. Even before COVID-19, staffing shortages across nursing, technical, and administrative roles were already straining capacity; today, those gaps are wider, costlier, and directly impacting patient access. With labor shortages persisting and burnout rising, health systems are being forced to rethink not just…

Read More
learning
If Higher Ed Wants Experiential Learning at Scale, It Needs a Broader Playbook
April 21, 2026

The ground is shifting under higher education. AI is changing how people learn almost overnight—and at the same time, more than half of graduates are underemployed after finishing their degrees. That’s forcing a more uncomfortable question into the open: what is a college credential really worth today? As employers and governments shift their focus…

Read More
skilled trades mentorship
Why the Modern Data Center Is Forcing Communities and Policymakers to Rethink Infrastructure
April 21, 2026

Data centers have moved from largely invisible digital infrastructure to a highly visible source of public debate as artificial intelligence accelerates demand for power, fiber, and compute capacity. The modern data center is now being built closer to population centers to support low-latency services, bringing critical infrastructure into direct contact with residential communities for…

Read More