Milestones to Memories: Looking Back on Three Decades of Rochester Top 100 Award Celebrations

Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce named Gorbel® a Top 100 fastest-growing local business for the 21st time! The thrill of being included never lessens, but each year our sense of nostalgia grows. Has it really been 33 years since Gorbel® was first named to the Top 100 in 1991?

The journey from our humble beginnings to where we stand today is one shaped by hard work, innovation, and a lot of heart. As we gear up for the big celebration next month, we wanted to commemorate the special impact the Top 100 has on our community. 

Inside the Greater Rochester Chamber Top 100 Awards Program
The Top 100 awards program isn’t just a list — it’s one of the biggest and most exciting local business events in the area. Each year, Greater Rochester Chamber calculates which privately held businesses headquartered in the Greater Rochester and Finger Lakes regions have seen the highest pace of financial growth. Eligible businesses must have generated at least $1 million in revenue for the previous three years.

Once the calculations are complete, Greater Rochester Chamber lets each business know they are on that year’s Top 100 list, but the exact rankings are kept secret until the night of the celebration. Many companies, Gorbel® included, bring noisemakers and confetti cannons to make the reveal even more exciting.

Susan George, Director of Events for the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce since 2001, explained the event’s start: “The idea for the Top 100 event originated during Greater Rochester Chambers’ annual meeting. We launched the program in 1987 in partnership with KPMG Financial Consulting. Over time, it has evolved into a signature event for us.”

The calculations were originally based solely on revenue, but Greater Rochester Chamber realized this presented a challenge for smaller businesses. To better capture the vibrancy and achievements of Rochester’s local businesses, Greater Rochester Chamber decided to consider actual dollar growth and percentage growth. “This change ensures a more balanced representation of companies from various industries and sizes,” said Susan.

Gorbel® Gets Growing in the 1990s
Our company’s history with the Top 100 award goes all the way back to 1991 – the very first year we made the list and the beginning of our longest consecutive streak from 1991 to 1999. We commemorate each year by adding a plaque to the display at our headquarters in Victor, NY. 

There are a number of longtime Gorbel® employees that attended the Top 100 awards celebration in 1991. Pete Friedrich, now the Vice President of Sales & Customer Experience, was a newly hired Sales and Marketing employee at the time. He recalled 1991 with a chuckle, “Back then, we were doing just over $4 million in sales annually. These days, we ship this amount many times over.” 

For most of the 1990s, Gorbel had just one table for ten at the Top 100 awards celebration. One table was more than enough for our company of a few dozen people. Today? The Gorbel® team numbers around 800 people worldwide and we are onboarding new employees weekly.

Interest in attending the Top 100 awards celebration among our employees is so high that we created a blind lottery system. Any employee can enter, but the luck-of-the-draw decides who will go. Forty Gorbel® employees will attend this year.

Susan said this increased interest is reflected across the board, “What started with an intimate gathering of 200-250 attendees has now grown into a major event with approximately 1,800 business leaders and their teams.”

With so many people in attendance, it is no wonder that the Top 100 awards celebration is now held in the Floreano Rochester Riverside Convention Center – the largest space of its kind in the city.

The Moments that Defined Gorbel® and its People
The journey of Gorbel® is surely one of impressive growth, but it is also one marked by resilience and strength. Pete’s favorite Top 100 celebration was 2022, when Gorbel® ranked #4 despite some major challenges in the few years prior. 

In August 2018, our founder Dave Reh passed away after 41 years of inspiring leadership. His son, Brian Reh, had assumed the role of Gorbel® CEO in 2010. Less than two years after Dave’s passing, COVID-19 changed the world.

For Pete and many others, the Top 100 in 2022 was their first chance to come together as a company after these difficult times. “Seeing Brian up there accepting an award on stage… I know that Dave was looking down with a big smile on his face,” said Pete.

Jeff McNeil, our Vice President of Marketing & Innovation, has been to seventeen Top 100 celebrations. Like Pete, the years Gorbel® overcame hardship were most memorable to him. “We made the list for five consecutive years from 2005 to 2009. Then we really struggled after the financial crisis. I remember what a great feeling it was to rank #3 in 2012 after the challenging years we had been through,” he recalled.

These stories are testament to the importance of Greater Rochester Chamber, its traditions, and the power of community. Susan said that these moments are what make the event truly unique and meaningful. She shared with us that one year a company even wore capes to the celebration to symbolize resilience during tough economic times. 

Connecting Yesterday’s Success to Tomorrow 
Gorbel® has kept its status as a regular Top 100 business all these years by focusing on improvement and innovation. Jeff explained, “As long as I have been a part of Gorbel®, there has been a constant energy to find the next new thing and to grow our business as much as we can. We celebrate our accomplishments briefly before turning our attention to the next opportunities.”

This approach to success drove us to create new products like the G-Force® Intelligent Lifting Device and establish manufacturing locations in Alabama, Arizona, and China. We have also explored new markets. Just recently, Gorbel® acquired Canada-based Engineered Lifting Systems in our first major step into the warehousing industry.

We are excited to share our story and recent business ventures with our community at this year’s Top 100 awards celebration on Wednesday, November 6. The celebration will feature entertainment, vendors, live music, delicious food, hand-pressed wine, and more.

Pete is most excited for the confetti cannons. When asked what advice he would give to an employee who is going for the first time, he said “Be proud and show others in attendance how at Gorbel® we work hard and play hard! Our tables will be full of noisemakers and confetti cannons – just go for it and have fun!”

As we look forward to the upcoming celebration on November 6, let’s remember those special people and the innovative spirit that have brought us this far. Here’s to many more years of growth and success!