Whistle while you work

Ohio company prides itself on distinct product

By Casey Laughman ~ The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Most people watch football for the touchdown passes or dramatic goal line stands. Then there's Ray Giesse, who likes to see the refs blow their whistles.

Giesse owns American Whistle Corp., the only major U.S. manufacturer of metal whistles.

"My friends and my wife laugh at me because I'm the only one who zooms in on the whistle," Giesse said. "I can't even pass a police officer on the street without looking."

Giesse bought the privately held company, then called Colsoff Manufacturing Co., 15 years ago after working as a sales manager for a trucking firm and dabbling in real estate. Colsoff Manufacturing, whose owner had become ill, was struggling at the time.

Under Giesse's watch, the company has grown from producing about 70,000 whistles the first year to about 1 million annually. Its competition mainly comes from manufacturers in foreign countries including Japan, Taiwan, China and England.

High-profile customers

American Whistle produces traditional metal whistles, which retail for $2 to $4, and it also makes custom designs for the cost of manufacturing a die and a minimum of 240 whistles. A die costs $360, but lasts for several million whistles, Giesse said.

Giesse renamed the company because he wanted people to identify with the fact that the whistles were made in America. He is the company's president and chief executive officer and his wife, Diane Serraglio, is vice president. There are nine other employees.

American Whistle has landed some high-profile accounts, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which Giesse calls the company's biggest customer. The company also creates the NFL commemorative gold-plated whistles for the officiating crew at the Super Bowl each year. Since the league doesn't have an official whistle, referees must use whistles they purchase themselves, said Mike Pereira, the league's director of officiating.

American Whistle has provided the Super Bowl whistles for nearly a decade. Each whistle has the Super Bowl logo and the referees' initials.

"That, quite frankly, is one of the mementos that most of the guys cherish more than any of the other things," said NFL official Bill Carollo, who was the head referee during the last Super Bowl. "The whistle is not only a piece of our official equipment, it symbolizes control on the field."

The whistles start as coiled ribbons of brass that are fed into a press that cuts two pieces: a top piece that looks like a square with Mickey Mouse ears attached and a rectangle for the bottom.

The pieces are bent by machine before going into a custom designed soldering machine. A single worker sits at the machine, slides the top and bottom pieces of the whistles together and drops them on a conveyor that feeds several rotating spindles. As the spindles turn, pieces are added to the whistles and they are soldered together before being dumped into a hopper.

A piece of synthetic cork is then pushed by machine into the hollow of the whistle. The cork is not actually needed to produce sound, Giesse said. Instead, it changes the pitch and modulation of the whistle.

After the whistles are put together, they are put into a large hopper with pieces of plastic that are specially designed to smooth metal. The hopper vibrates for several hours, smoothing and polishing.

For custom whistles, a 39-ton press stamps logos into the brass, ensuring that the image will not rub off or fade.

Giesse even made 230 whistles for his daughter's wedding; each whistle was stamped with a heart and the bride and groom's names.

Giesse said everyone found their whistles at their place settings at the same time