NiceBadge

Recognizing Excellence

Where do you go to find the Tiffany’s of name badges?

According to Lowell Gibson, the CEO of NiceBadge, high-end name tags are the company’s specialty. You can even find a name badge for $5,000—no joke. Of course, not every product is as extravagant, and NiceBadge also offers affordable name badges, signs, and personalized promotional items. Whether awards made of carved crystal and glass or dependable signage outside your business, NiceBadge’s mission is to provide the best quality recognition. NiceBadge came from humble beginnings.

In 1979 Recognition Express was a name-tag-making sole proprietorship bought by Gibson’s mother and operated from a garage in Wimer. In the following years, the company began to grow and was renamed Recognition Specialties. The business amassed a steady local clientele until 2006, when NiceBadge added an effective salesperson to the team: the Internet. That was the start of national sales, as well as NiceBadge.com. Later on, to keep from causing confusion, the company rebranded to match their web address. Now, NiceBadge produces thousands of products per week—from grocery store name badges, to high-end awards for corporate parties.

When asked about the NiceBadge crew—which consists of twenty people on average—Gibson replied that his employees are the real stars. “I always say that this is the best crew I’ve ever had, but I mean it! We demand excellence—but if you hire good people and take good care of them, they stick around and want to do excellent work.” Making a name badge is mostly automated today, so NiceBadge is home to a multitude of high-tech lasers and stamping equipment. It’s very rare to find employees with name badge making experience, so everyone at NiceBadge is trained on the equipment in-house. While this means that there are not any college prerequisites, a day at NiceBadge is not always easy. Employees work hard and Gibson admits that he only hires those who want to work for him. He notes that when you take a group of diligent people who truly want to give their best, amazing things happen with company culture. Employees are friends outside of the office and are able to enjoy creating projects as a team. With good pay, benefits, and internal promotion, coming into work isn’t half-bad.

Another benefit of working at NiceBadge is the location. For Gibson, Josephine County is home—a beautiful area where people can enjoy life and succeed in business. Located off the Redwood Highway, the road to the Northern California/Southern Oregon coast, NiceBadge’s home, Grants Pass, is a city with a small-town feel. Visitors from across the country are beginning to recognize the area for its coffee, breweries, jetboat excursions, and even the creative bear statues lining the summer sidewalks. “We want others to have success here,” Gibson concludes. After all, isn’t that the point of a business like NiceBadge? To make products that give others recognition?

NiceBadge is expanding their space, creating more room for their machinery and rebuilding offices after a structure fire in early 2021. They are diversifying their product line as well, adding additional business signage among other personalized items. Yet with these changes, some things will always stay the same. An excitement for business, company-culture, and of course, quality name badges that will make people ask, “Is that a NiceBadge?”

NiceBadge | 1710 Harbeck Rd, Grants Pass, OR 97527 | www.nicebadge.com | (541) 476-3166