Andover's Landmark Finish Adapts In The Face Of The Coronavirus

Andover, MA — The Junges have been through this before.

In 2008, Deanna and Stewart Junge saw a threat to their business. They could see that the recession starting to grip the country was coming for Landmark Finish, the Andover-based high-end residential cabinetry company that they’d started about a decade before.

They took a critical look at their business and decided it was time to adapt, shifting their focus from residential to commercial.

The decision saved Landmark Finish, which is now nearly twenty years old. With that experience under their belt, the Junges were prepared as they once again confronted a collapsing economy.

In mid-March, when the pandemic was still in its early stages of outbreak, they saw signs of imminent economic closure and began to prepare for the worst.

“March came and COVID hit and things started shutting down and we knew that had to pivot our business and make a change,” Deanna Junge said. “We’ve been in business for nearly twenty years. We pivoted our business in 2008 because of the recession. We’ve been on this rollercoaster before. We saw some of those telltale signs that we needed to make a change and we were able to kick into gear quickly to do that.”

When watching the news one night in April, Stewart Junge noticed an interviewee speaking behind a crude plastic barrier.

“As soon as I saw that,” he said, “I knew that was going to be the new norm. I went to work the next day and started prototyping.”

He began producing the prototype models for Landmark’s newest product: Safe-Guards.

Safe-Guards are designed to allow for safe human interaction in a world where air-particles can wreak infection. They come in a variety of sizes and are clear, plastic panels that fit into legged frames, enabling the safe conduction of interaction in a variety of environments, including schools and businesses.

Junge started work on the prototypes in April. By May, they had their first sale. Within three weeks of establishing this new product line, 500 units had been sold. And this whirlwind is showing no signs of slowing.

“We knew that there was an urgency to get this product to market,” Deanna Junge said. “We knew that we had to hit the ground running.”

Landmark is currently operating at triple the amount of work they are used to, and have had to hire an additional two employees to keep up with the orders.

“The equipment doesn’t care what kind of material it’s cutting,” Deanna Junge said. “There’s no difference between the machine cutting wood or plastic. So for us, the pivot was not a difficult pivot, it was a very organic process for us.”

Beyond the fact that Landmark has been able to adapt so quickly to such adverse economic conditions, their product is intrinsically designed to help people — in almost all cases, some form of plastic barriers are absolutely essential for reopening, especially for colleges and schools, which Landmark is now working with.

“Our hope is that we can share our story so that other businesses that might be struggling, or that might not have past experience how to pivot,” Deanna Junge said, “our hope is that our story can inspire those companies so that they can fight their way through the challenges and come out the other side stronger like we’re doing.”