Trans-Pacific Leadership
Dawn Kitchen & Bath Products, Inc.: American firm with an international reach
It is hard to underestimate the importance of companies like Dawn Kitchen & Bath Products, Inc. (Dawn Kitchen & Bath). It’s one of those companies that proves that you can be a global company and think locally…that you can build an empire and still care about your family…that the American Dream is still vibrant.
Here are the basics of Dawn Kitchen & Bath. It’s headquartered in Hayward, California. It has four manufacturing plants in China, nine warehouses in California and is adding another manufacturing facility in China. It has distributors in Utah, Arizona, Texas, New York, Indiana, and soon in Massachusetts. Its leadership has over 25 years of experience in designing, developing and producing stainless steel sinks, faucets and accessories. It has over 30 employees in the United States, including designers, engineers, plumbing specialists and technicians. Internationally, the company employs around 250 people.
But like most companies, the story of Dawn Kitchen & Bath is much more interesting than the basics reveal.
Extraordinary Beginnings
Dawn Kitchen & Bath is really a story of immigrants.
Let’s start with the firm’s National Sales Manager Francisco Cano. A veteran of the U.S. Army and a foreign-born American citizen, he never wanted to be a salesman. His background is in operations logistics. “I have been doing this for 20 years, and if you had asked me 21 years ago if I was going to be in sales for 20 years, I would have said no.”
Francisco met Dawn Kitchen & Bath’s founders, Herman He Xin Kuang and Jenny Ma Kuang, in 2000. He was selling finishing wood products to the Kuangs and felt an instant connection because of their similar beginnings in this country.
Dawn Kitchen & Bath’s owners grew up in China. “Herman’s family owned a stainless steel company, but he didn’t follow into the family business. As a young entrepreneur in his twenties, he decided he should open a karaoke bar,” Francisco says. When the business closed, his father encouraged him to join the family business. Again, Herman declined and decided to follow his own dream to immigrate to America. In 1997, with $5,000, an airline ticket and a work visa, he headed to California.
“His first job was as a busboy, then a laborer on construction sites, later as a carpenter, and eventually becoming a general contractor,” Francisco says. During that time, he reunited with a friend from China, who immigrated to California. Jenny and Herman fell in love and married in the late 1990s.
In 2003, Herman and Jenny decided to follow their dreams and opened a kitchen and bath business. “They registered the name ‘Dawn’ because it symbolizes a new day and a new horizon in a new country,” Francisco says. “They decided to build their future in America.”
Francisco, too, decided to build a future in America. An Army veteran, he unexpectedly became a single father when his children were in elementary school. “I understood that I had to be a mother and a father to my kids, and that I needed flexibility in my schedule,” he says. “I applied for a warehouse manager position with E.B. Bradley Co., a woodwork finishing supply company. They offered me a sales position instead.” At the beginning, it was difficult because being in sales was not his strong suit.
But like Herman and Jenny, he was persistent. “I wasn’t going to give up, and eventually read a book called ‘Dear God! I Never Wanted to Be a Salesman!’ by Timothy McMahon. That book changed my life. I found I wasn’t the only one on this path!”
In 2009, Francisco attended a sales training and development conference in Oregon.
The speaker, Gary McKillican, talked to everyone in the room. At the end of the conference, he circled around the room and stood behind him, and said “Francisco is the only innate salesperson here today. It is totally up to him how successful he will be. It was my ‘aha moment’—I finally realized that it was up to me to mold my future.”
A New Dawn
Eventually, Herman reconnected with his family in China. “The business in the U.S. is semi-vertically affiliated with Herman’s family business in China,” Francisco says, “but does accept suggestions from his family and has used his knowledge and expansive experience to grow Dawn on both sides of the Pacific.”
By 2007, Dawn Kitchen & Bath had grown large enough to open its first warehouse in Hayward. “Our products are innovative in that a client can get high-quality brass and steel sinks and fittings at midmarket prices,” Francisco says. “We produce a variety of high-quality pieces made with the user in mind. From laboratories to personal homes, we can find the right product for you.”
The company’s product line includes sinks, accessories, faucets, shower fixtures and vanities. They are made with 16-, 18- or 20-gauge, 304-type 18/10 chrome content, insulated and padded stainless steel with a satin polish finish. Its faucets and shower fixtures are made of solid brass with a ceramic disc cartridge and then plated with chrome or brushed nickel to provide reliability and durability. All of Dawn’s products meet the American and Canadian plumbing codes, including the Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) and Canadian Uniform Plumbing Code (cUPC). Finally, the faucets and shower fixtures come with a lifetime warranty.
“Each of our products is designed with the user in mind,” Francisco adds. “For example, we add components to our sinks to ensure durability and hygiene. Our kitchen accessories, like colanders, are designed to fit in our sinks to improve efficiency in the kitchen. We care about little things like that.”
Innovation is also part of the company’s culture. “If customers want a specific aesthetic design or have a special need, we can engineer and create a wide-ranging selection of custom products for them,” Francisco says.
Proud Americans
Francisco underscores Dawn Kitchen & Bath’s pride in being an American company. “In today’s landscape, it can feel like the American Dream is being obscured,” he says. “But it is still here, and it is still possible. What Dawn proves is that immigrants can come here, work hard, start a company and grow a business. That’s why America is great.”
And so, there is a new dawn in California, and like the sun, it does rise in the east and set in the west. Herman He Xin Kuang and Jenny Ma Kuang, and Francisco Cano are proof positive that the trials of life can lead to paths of prosperity and personal fulfillment when people are given the freedoms to explore their potentials and take risks along the way.