Colorado’s Product Architects — the company behind the popular Made in America Polar Bottle brand of insulated water bottles — was honoured this month with an award that hits close to home for about one third of its employees.
The Boulder-based company was named one of the Top 50 Family Owned Companies listed in the February edition of Colorado Biz Magazine. Of the company’s current 57 employees, about 18 are related to one another in some way.
The family connections at Polar Bottle range from parents and children, to siblings, cousins and in-laws. The connections were born back when the company was founded in 1994 and have grown with the popularity of the bottles — currently available in hundreds of retailers across the United States and in 42 countries around the world.
The first Polar Bottle employee, for example, eventually recruited his parents, two brothers and a cousin to work for the company. They are all current employees and have lunch together every day.
To visualize the familial connections, Polar Bottle has produced its own family tree…
