20 Years Strong: RubberForm Leading U.S. Safety Manufacturing From the Ground Up

From parking lots to construction sites to municipal streets, RubberForm proves that safety and sustainability can—and should—go hand in hand

“Thank God I did not give up during the Great Recession of 2008.”

That sentence still defines my journey, Bill Robbins, Founder and CEO, RubberForm Recycled Products said.

Twenty years ago, Robbins took a chance on an idea that, at the time, very few people believed in: turning recycled tires into high-performance, American-made safety products.
“I saw a real need for durable, functional products made from recycled materials, and I didn’t see many companies in the United States doing it well, or at all,” Robbins said.

RubberForm Recycled Products, founded in 2005, began building its manufacturing plant in 2006 just north of Buffalo, New York in Lockport, New York.
Then, in 2008, the Great Recession hit.
It was a brutally tough and humbling time for the Robbins family and for the business.

What got me through the ups, the downs, and more than a few near-disasters was passion, persistence, resilience, grit, and an incredibly understanding family and a RubberForm team that never stopped believing in the vision.
We survived, we adapted, and we grew stronger from there.

From day one, RubberForm’s mission was clear: prove that American ingenuity could transform recycled tire rubber and recycled plastics into world-class safety, risk-mitigation, and compliance products.

Built on One Product and a Big Idea

RubberForm’s very first recycled tire product, the portable sign base, started it all.
Made in America from recycled tire rubber, it was engineered to withstand wind, weather, and abuse in parking lots, roadways, and job sites across the country.
Today, it’s used for stop signs, no-parking signs, regulatory signage, curbside pickup programs, and more.

What makes it different is simple but intentional engineering: its center of gravity sits just one inch off the ground.
That allows the base to be tipped and rolled for easy handling, yet remain extremely stable and resistant to tipping or blowing over in high winds.
Each sign base contains recycled tire rubber equivalent to approximately five passenger tires, primarily sourced from truck tires, which provide superior strength, consistency, and impact absorption.

As customers asked for guidance on selecting the right sign base for their specific applications, RubberForm responded by developing a comprehensive comparison guide,
“Concrete vs. Recycled Rubber Sign Bases” to help businesses and municipalities make smarter, safer, and more cost-effective decisions.

Growth Driven by Listening

Over the years, RubberForm’s product line has grown from just a sign base and a wheel stop into more than 30 recycled rubber and composite plastic safety, risk mitigation, and compliance products.

That growth didn’t happen by accident.

Many of the company’s best innovations start with a simple phone call from a customer:

“You already make this, but could you make this?”

“We listen. We study the industry, the potential market, and the real-world environment where our products are used,” Robbins said.

And when there’s a clear need, RubberForm invests in the tooling, engineering, manufacturing, right recycled material, and marketing required to bring a better solution to market.

This customer-driven approach ensures that we’re not just selling products, we’re creating effective, real-world safety and risk-mitigation solutions.

Proudly American Made – By Choice

For our family and our company, American manufacturing is not a slogan. It’s a core value.

We manufacture in the United States. We buy American whenever possible. We employ American workers right here at home.
And yes, we’re not the least expensive option in the market.
But we are confident we deliver the best-performing, most durable safety products available today made from recycled materials.

While much of the reseller competition relies on imported or subsidized imported products, RubberForm remains focused on long-term performance, safety, and value,
especially for public-sector and industrial customers who cannot afford failure.

That commitment to innovation was recently recognized when the RubberForm team received the Innovation Award from Buffalo Business First.

“From the beginning, innovation has been in our DNA.
We’ve spent years reinventing how recycled tire rubber and recycled plastics are transformed into high-performance safety products,” Robbins said.

Today, RubberForm’s Lockport, New York facility is one of the few in the country to master thick-walled injection molding and thick-walled profile extrusion using sustainable materials,
a significant milestone in American manufacturing.

Sustainability That Goes Beyond Marketing

Sustainability at RubberForm is practical, not performative.

After years of manufacturing compression-molded speed cushions, the company officially retired those molds in 2022.
But instead of scrapping them, every mold is being recycled and repurposed into new thick-walled injection molds for future innovations.
That’s sustainability applied directly to manufacturing, not just talked about.

RubberForm continues to develop new products every year to meet evolving needs across construction site safety,
industrial plant safety, public-sector infrastructure, and parking-lot and road safety.

In June 2025, after more than a year of development, RubberForm introduced a patent-pending 4-inch Pipe and Hose Ramp.
Manufactured in the USA from recycled composite material, the interlocking two-piece design spans 36 inches wide with a 39-inch drive-over length
and accommodates pipes or hoses up to 4.5 inches in diameter—another example of solving a real job-site problem with a better, safer solution.

A Builder’s Perspective on Entrepreneurship

This year, Bill was honored to be nominated for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
While Bill didn’t advance to the finals, the experience gave him time to reflect on what entrepreneurship really means to him.

“I didn’t build RubberForm with venture capital or hype-driven growth targets.
I built it with sweat, risk, and relentless belief, one customer, one innovation, one recycled product at a time.
For nearly two decades, we’ve manufactured sustainable, American-made safety products that serve real industries and solve real problems,” Bill Robbins said.

Awards often celebrate rapid-scale, tech-disruptor stories.
But there’s another kind of entrepreneur: the builder.
The one who creates something durable.
Who reinvests, innovates, and grows steadily because they believe in the work itself.
To Bill, that’s the heart of true entrepreneurship.

A Family Business – Looking Forward

The true strength of RubberForm has always been its people and its family-business roots.

Today, Bill is especially proud that his two sons, Jeff and Jake, are stepping up to lead the next chapter of the company.
Same mission. Same values. New energy.

“Working together allows us to grow together, challenge one another, and continue building products that make workplaces,
roads, and communities safer, while honoring the tradition of American manufacturing that got us here,” Bill said.

After 20 years, we’re just getting started.

© Scrap Tire News, January 2026