Symbiote is a manufacturer of specialized laboratory, technical, and healthcare furniture who, alongside its partners, seeks to elevate its clients’ spaces and the work that can be done within them. The company’s in-house manufacturing, production, engineering, and interior design work is informed by a deep intergenerational expertise that bridges the gap between people and the work that they do by optimizing the interaction between the user, the equipment, and the application.
Symbiote’s thoughtfully designed modular and heavy-duty workstations, height-adjustable tables, storage solutions, and more are a part of achieving symbiosis in the workplace to promote maximum performance and efficiency at a time when every moment and every dollar counts.
Generations of success
For more than four decades, Symbiote has delivered complete solutions for its customers across diverse industries and specialties. Backed by a reputation for quality since 1982, when it was founded by Travis Randolph, the company continues to seek out new opportunities to serve its markets and grow sustainably.
Since 2019, the company has been on a new trajectory of growth under the leadership of Travis’s son, Barrett Randolph, who has taken the reins as President and infused a fresh sense of energy and vision in the company, helping it to navigate some challenging times. Stepping up to the plate just before the onset of the pandemic—and then into the present tariff environment, which has essentially eliminated its international business—Barrett Randolph has taken charge, developing and executing a new five-year plan.
Along with a significant investment in the company’s infrastructure, the goal has been to add the manufacturing capacity to enable launches into different markets, as well as to diversify and grow sales and product development capabilities. “Part of the strategic plan that I had created about five years ago is to be more efficient, with an ability to increase sales and output without having to increase the headcount,” he explains.
“A big part of it is starting with the right people in the right seats and finding the right team to lead, and I’ve got to say that one of the smartest things I think I’ve ever done is actually hire a CEO,” he says.
Enter CEO Kerri Milarch, who was thrilled to join the team in 2023. She refers to that time as “a pivotal moment in the company’s evolution,” the fulfillment of Barrett Randolph’s vision to grow Symbiote through elevated brand awareness, expanded market share, and investment in the company’s capacities to ensure it is a place people are proud to work at and partner with.
Noting that Symbiote’s product offering has always been “exceptionally strong,” Milarch says that the investment in capacity and infrastructure has been momentous, particularly from a process improvement and documentation standpoint, which will enable the company to scale sustainably in the future.
From inventory control systems—which improve the ability to measure and utilize data and track inventory and performance across business segments—to a brand new website equipped with the digital tools a growing team of sales representatives needs, the investments are strategic and impactful. As Randolph tells us, “they can actually create the entire space for the customer digitally and provide floor plans and renderings for them upfront before they place an order. That’s not something a lot of companies like ours do, or at least they charge a lot for that service, whereas we bundle it in as the cost of business.”
Strengthening capacity and relationships
There has also been a push to streamline the manual aspects of the workflow at Symbiote, training and cross-training employees (which Milarch refers to as “nesting”) to support the company’s growth, enable faster quotes, reduce lead times, and optimize performance overall.
“The particular focus in that area was how to serve the customer better,” she says, and also how to free up Barrett Randolph “to do what Barrett does best, and that is product development. He is excellent and a visionary when it comes to research about what’s next for us.”
Through that activity, there was a realization that, to sustain demand, greater redundancy was needed, which is why Symbiote has continued to grow partnerships, cultivating a balance between in-house manufacturing and third-party support.
E Com Seating is a perfect example of that partnership in action. Like Symbiote, a multigenerational family-owned business, there is a shared commitment between the parties to elevate the performance of the spaces within which their clients work.
“They provide lab seats and chairs for laboratories, and instead of trying to develop our own lab chair, which would take years, we’ve partnered with them. They offer a great selection of products that we can immediately offer to our customers to fill out their lab spaces even better,” says Randolph.
By scaling back in this way, Symbiote can undertake some production in-house but continue to focus on the customers and their needs, as well as ongoing product development and customization. Fewer parts are being made overall, but sales are on an upward trajectory.
For Randolph, “We’re going to focus on what it is that we do well, what our customers want that we don’t offer or that doesn’t exist right now, and put real effort into making new products for them.” He also envisages getting both the company’s customized and standard lines of products to the market more effectively through an expanded sales network nationwide.
Meeting people where they are
Symbiote is respected for equipment and service that meets users where they are, creating that perfect symbiosis in the workspace. It’s not simply what the company does, but rather, how it does it, that sets it apart from the rest. Further to its investment in capacity and infrastructure, Symbiote takes a conscious approach to building a culture that encourages and empowers its people to be part of the company’s success, creating symbiosis internally just as it does with its customers.
“From my perspective, to bring the teams along, you have to win their hearts and minds and let them be a part of this,” says Milarch, and with policies and provisions such as flexible work hours, training, wholly paid health insurance premiums, competitive 401(k), and a carbon neutral facility from which to work, Symbiote is a place where people are proud to work.
Employees get more than just the satisfaction of improving their clients’ workflows; they get to be the best living example of those principles in action, thanks to a results-oriented culture that is open to change and evolution, which, to be honest, is often quite hard for family-owned operations of this scale.
From Milarch’s perspective, Symbiote is family business done right. “I couldn’t ask for more support than that from the family that owns this business because that’s what’s really going to drive our success,” she says. “Like I said, we have to win the hearts and minds of our people, and throughout these last three years, there have been some difficult times; I’d be kidding if I said there weren’t. But I have really learned to respect and enjoy this team. They are remarkably resilient, and they have an excitement about the future and where we’re headed.”
By maintaining continuous improvement, Symbiote has built an enthusiastic staff who want to be there each day and who drive value for the customer through that upbeat approach and energy.
Purpose-driven change
In any business, the ability to be successful lies in the ability to adjust, adapt, and focus on what can be controlled, and this is ultimately what Symbiote is doing to navigate the headwinds it has encountered.
“It’s a constant re-evaluation of what levers you must adjust to make things run smoothly—from what was to what will be—and again, it’s making sure you have the right team in place. You can have a great product that everyone wants, but if you don’t have stable processes and good people pulling in the same direction, it doesn’t really matter. You need a unified team to work well,” says Randolph.
For Milarch, the company has become “more aligned, disciplined, and prepared for scalable growth,” with 2026 looking good already and building on the clarity, capacity, and redundant systems in place to sustain growth internally and externally.
“We have a shared sense of purpose now,” Milarch says, and it’s time to share that with the world, creating a more defined and outward sense of brand awareness and furthering the capacity to achieve customers’ goals with unceasing care and commitment to quality and relationships.
