A region revitalized, a region re-imagined, striving, thriving, innovating, collaborating, elevating and accelerating the crater.

Lehigh Valley is home to businesses that are booming and pain changes that are forging the future.

This is Lehigh Valley Rising.

BSI Corporate Benefits is a proud supporter of Lehigh Valley Rising.

Additional support provided by Adam's outdoor advertising On this episode of Lehigh Valley Rising, we spotlight the members of what we're calling the Century Club, local businesses and institutions that have stood the test of time for 100 years or more.

Our first feature focus is on just board a candy manufacturer celebrating its 100th birthday this year.

Just Born's most famous product, The Peep, a delectable marshmallow chick, especially popular for filling up Easter basket.

In addition to peeps, the company also churns out an assortment of other delights, including chewy chocolate, fruit flavored and cinnamon candies.

Just Born's sweet success based on making yummy treats and serving the community a winning formula.

Then and now.

It was born as third generation family owned candy company that's celebrating 100 years in 2023.

Random acts of sweetness is a great way for us to celebrate our 100th anniversary.

We're keeping the Peeps Mobile out.

We're taking the Peep’s chick mascot out and we're going to the community to celebrate.

Lots of sweet little things that are every day.

You might catch us at the gas station with the Peeps Mobile.

You might pay for your gas as a random act of sweetness.

If we're out to dinner, you might catch us paying your bill as a random act of sweetness.

We're a family owned company, and all of us are treated like one big family here.

At this point.

We employ almost 600 associates here just born.

Most of them are in the factory where a three shift operation five days a week.

And then we have 100 or so people here in the in the office.

Peeps, Mike and Ike, hot tamales, Mike and Ikes.

Here's your Mike and Ikes with all the Ike's taken out.

Welcome to Just Born.

We're turning 100 years old this year.

And of course, we're going to take a little sneak peek inside the factory.

But we're here in the Peeps Marshmallow department.

And where Peeps start is right here in the beginning where they get their color.

Goldenbergs Peanut Chews is our newest brand, you know, in terms of the company owning it.

But actually, our oldest brand, Peanut Chews, been around since 1917.

2003 we acquired the company.

Mike and Ike is our largest brand in terms of dollar sales.

We have the number one cinnamon candy in the country, which is hot tamales.

And then, of course, everybody knows peeps.

Peeps is our best known brand, highest awareness.

It's number two in terms of sales.

But when you consider all the different licensing and partnerships that we have, it's fast becoming our largest brand.

When you include all different products.

Sam Born, our founder, he grew up in Russia, actually modern day Ukraine.

He was looking to get away from the czar's army and escape The country, went to Czechoslovakia and eventually made his way to Paris, where he got a job in a chocolate shop.

And then from there he emigrated over to the United States and ultimately opened up a little candy shop, a little factory in the back in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York, where he used to put a sign in the window.

The candy is so fresh, it's as if it's just born that day.

Sam brought his brother in law's into the business, Irv and Jack Shaffer.

And eventually they really wanted to expand.

But as you can imagine, a little expensive to do that in New York City.

And so they actually came across Bethlehem.

It was a great place.

But when steel was here, there was a lot of labor, but they knew they could expand here.

And then actually they found a building at auction, which is the very building we're sitting in.

We're here in the mike and I can to Molly's packaging area.

It typically takes 3 to 4 days to make a mechanical hot tamales.

In 1940, we actually launched Mike and Ike.

1950 and Hot Tamales.

The shoppers in the barns were looking for the next best thing.

They actually stumbled upon the Rodda Candy Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

They went to acquire this candy business, and while they were on tour there in the back room, there was all these women with pastry tubes just squirting out these little quirky little marshmallow birds.

And that's when peeps really, you know, took off.

Now we start with marshmallow with five major ingredients sugar, corn syrup, water, air and then we add love.

And that's where Peeps gets its character.

Peep started as an Easter tradition, but they are so much more than that.

You can, you know, smash microwave fry on.

People do so many other things with them and that's what we call peeps finality, where people make arts and crafts with peeps, they make recipes.

The most ridiculous cookie bars ever.

And don't forget to garnish with an extra peep.

One way people express their personalities with diorama contests.

Not only do they create really cute and fun scenes, but there's even life sized sculptures.

A couple years ago, we even had a life sized sculpture of Big Bird in the lobby.

The Peeps chick is so iconic and so colorful and fun, full of personalities.

8.

7.

6.

Peeps Fest is a celebration of all things peeps.

What's your favorite part of the whole peeps fest celebration?

The fireworks and seeing the peace peeps fest culminates with the dropping of a huge 400 peeps chick.

Two!

One!

Happy new year.

It's fun and excitement of the brand brought to life.

I What a great way to celebrate with family and kids and to be able to give back to the community.

Just Born has been involved with the community truly since the beginning.

It's been a pillar of the company's beliefs.

We're big supporters of education.

We were the first corporate partner here in the Lehigh Valley to team up with United Way and Lehigh University to be able to provide support to Brockwell Middle School.

And that has blossomed.

We're now we support a second school in Marvin Elementary, which is right behind our facility.

It's a way to be able to give back to the community, be able to give back to the future.

And when you think about where we put most of our support from a grant standpoint, a lot of it is in the area of education.

And as we celebrate our 100 years, you know, we're not doing a lot of public facing events.

If anything, we're doing a lot of events focused on the folks that got us to where we are.

And that's our associates, that's our stakeholders.

And of course, that is our community's.

Our purpose is is bringing sweetness to people's lives.

You know, we're the 10th largest candy company in the United States.

Little old, just born I worked at just born for 25 years.

What really keeps me here is the culture that the family has created and investing in our communities where we do live and play.

From a company celebrating its 100th birthday, we go to a local institution that just celebrated its 150th.

In the mid 1800s, the Lehigh Valley boomed with industry from railroads to steelmaking.

In these early days, workers had plenty to do, but it was often dangerous labor with few safety regulations in place.

This led to injuries bad ones in an emergency where every minute counts.

The Lehigh Valley needed its own hospital, and St Luke's answered the call.

How has St Luke's lost 150 years?

Lots of places haven't.

They've become obsolete for one reason or another.

And not only are we not obsolete, I think we're right there at the cutting edge.

Right after the Civil War.

The Lehigh Valley made a major transformation from being a basic rural area to an industrial hub.

We had railroads.

We had mines that don't have a higher end company, which later became Bethlehem Steel cement companies and also companies that produced explosives.

Clearly, when you looked at all of these companies.

One of the things that was very much in common because there were very few safety measures, is that there were a number of employee injuries.

Employees who were injured had to be taken as far away as Philadelphia or New York in order to get treatment.

Our valley needed a trauma facility, so the community leaders at the time had a vision that we needed to establish a hospital in about 1872.

It was established by donations.

It was nonsectarian and it was free for all it, regardless of whatever your nationality or religious creed was.

We have continued as a nonprofit to continue to espouse those kinds of goals.

And 150 years later, our commitment to the community is stronger and much more robust.

St Luke's has been a part of many, many advances throughout the 150 years that it's been over here.

It now has resulted in the only four year medical school in the area.

We signed the papers in 2010 to have a regional medical school in conjunction with Temple.

We started the school in a very modest way with 30 students per year.

We now we're up to 40 students per year.

We have it limited to 40 people at the offer, a premiere type of education to these individuals so that we want to see in people who are hopefully going to stay in our community.

Students live in the Lehigh Valley.

They train in the Lehigh Valley.

Over half of the graduates of our medical school select St Luke's to practice their residencies, and so therefore, they are much more likely to stay here with us.

I was born and raised in the Lehigh Valley.

St Luke's has been the staple of medicine or kind of medical awareness for me.

So when I found out about the St Luke's Temple program here that I could actually do all four years up in the Lehigh Valley around my family and friends, it just, it was kind of a no brainer.

Just being able to give back to a community that has given me so much has meant the world to me.

St Luke's has always been committed to this community.

Many of us have had our children here or grandchildren here, and I think that stands with St Luke's vision and mission to to be the hospital, to be here.

More people were moving to this area.

People are starting families here.

People are expecting more, as they should, to not have to travel outside the region to be able to get excellent health care.

A part of a good quality of life is good health care.

We are educating our providers for the future.

St Luke's Hospital was the region's first community hospital.

Today, we continue that commitment to our community.

We have a very close relationship with the Hispanics and their neighbors.

To me, this is my second home.

I love it that we have activity here.

I learn how to dance.

I run the steps.

They keep us busy.

We don't buy a lot of the home.

Social networks are really, really important for the health of individuals.

Im part of the senior center program.

It improves us their mental health, our seniors.

We have many students who go in.

We have residents who go into the Hispanic center.

They don't just do health care.

They have a food pantry.

They have a career counseling area.

So we work very collaboratively and meet them where they are and meet the needs of the community where they are, too.

St Luke's has been foundational for the last 150 years here in the Lehigh Valley.

We're agile, we're innovative, we just do it.

As Lehigh Valley residents, we're fortunate to have St Luke's in our backyard and honored to have them as a long time supporter of PBS 39.

Now let's look at a company marking 190 years of innovation and craftsmanship.

C.F.

Martin, one of the world's top guitar manufacturers, has enjoyed a legendary reputation among singer songwriters musicians for generations.

I pulled into Nazareth, was feeling have past dead.

My grandfather used to say, We're mechanics.

We take a tree and transform it into a guitar that a guitar player can use to make great music.

You know how I'm going to sell you a guitar?

I'm going to take you on a tour of the Martin Guitar Factory.

Welcome to the Martin Guitar Factory here in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

The best way to sell someone a martin guitar is to have them play it.

There's nothing better than seeing your hero playing a martin guitar, going all the way back to Hank Williams.

Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan.

Most recently, we worked with Shawn Mendes, Eric Clapton, Ed Sheeran, Crosby, Stills and Nash, John Mayer.

There are so many musicians.

This guitar is what we call the 16 Rock the Vote.

We worked with David Crosby back in 2020 as a way to promote the vote.

Christian Martin really invented the acoustic guitar, as we know.

The acoustic guitar now.

MARTIN Guitars is 190 years old.

The first.

MARTIN Christian Frederik.

He came over in 1833, grew up in a small town in eastern Germany, and that town actually was famous at that time for violin making.

Father got him a job in Vienna where he studied guitar making with Johan Stauffer, briefly came back to mark the curtain, but ultimately decided to come to the New World.

When they came to America on November 6th, 1833, they settled in Manhattan and 196 Hudson Street rented a building, had a music store downstairs, shop in the back, lived upstairs.

They had friends who were living in the Lehigh Valley and they came out to visit.

And my gut tells me that Mrs. Martin grabbed Mr. Martin by the collar and said, We're moving to Pennsylvania and we've been here ever since.

The majority of the demand was for Spanish classical guitars.

Where they were being made at that time was in Cadiz, where it was very hot and humid all year.

And if you send a guitar like that to New York or Boston in the winter, it can crack.

So he began to copy them and that was the beginning of him creating the Martin Brand by saying, I'm going to make a more durable version of the guitar that you're already familiar with.

And he and his heirs did that all the way up until really the 1920s, when we fairly rapidly moved away from gut string to steel strings.

And that's the point.

We're talking about an American invention.

So many people refer to it as the mecca of guitar making because there is that history and you're going to see a lot of hand craftsmanship.

Right now, we're still in the custom shop with Bryce, and he's shaping a maple neck by hand like a generic neck.

That's kind of like a flying neck.

Once we put the steel string on the guitar, country musicians said, This is what we were looking for.

So the steel string and then ultimately the Dreadnought guitar.

That's what made Martin the go to guitar for country and Western players.

We employ 500 people here and 500 people at our facility in Nashville.

I don't think there's anybody that works in this place that doesn't have passion, that doesn't do some sort of craftsmanship.

And people at Martin still touch every part of the process.

And it's hundreds and hundreds of steps to get to a finished guitar here.

NAZARETH We produce almost 200 guitars per day on average.

We also know that the consumers, they have become more diverse and broader.

For example, as part of the COVID pandemic, we saw a significant demand for guitars.

50% of new buyers of guitars were females.

What connects a lot of people that love Martin with us is actually the experience and the love for creativity, what we call Unleash the Artist within 190 years is impressive.

But the senior member of our Century Club goes the distance.

With more than two centuries of service, Bixler Jewelers has been making finely crafted, exquisite jewelry since 1785.

That's two years before we even became a nation.

The secret of their success lies in one basic principle making the best jewelry in the world.

That was Bixler’s philosophy of service then, and it's still there standard today.

We carry Caracal diamonds, fashion jewelry, yellow gold, white gold, rose gold.

We have sterling silver jewelry, gemstone jewelry.

Every piece is unique.

Every piece has a story.

Every piece has a story.

Welcome to Bixlers.

I'm Perry Sporn.

We're proud that every item in our store is handmade.

I’m the owner of Bixler’s and I actually started in the jewelry business to pay my way through college.

I acquired the company about six years ago when I met Joyce Welken, who is a Bixler family member.

Christian Bixler was my great great great grandfather who started Bixler Jewelers in Easton in 1785.

Right now I'm in sales and that's my main role and I'm still meeting clients, which I love.

I'm most proud of the fact that family's been able to carry on the Bixler tradition for 238 years, and we'll hope that goes another 238.

With Perry involved.

This is the third oldest family business in the United States.

The company survived 238 years.

It survived the Civil War, two world wars, the Great Depression, the COVID 19 pandemic adapted all the way through.

We've survived because Bixlers has a sense of purpose.

There's a commitment to the founders principle making the best jewelry in the world, making the best products in the world.

A commitment to giving back to community.

But one of the really neat things about Bixlers was during the Great Depression, we converted part of our store into a library.

It was really important to us to really establish a foundation for literacy.

We're constantly looking at ways to really reach out to our community.

If it fits with what our vision is, we're going to become a part of that.

The founder, Christian Bixler the third was a Swiss clockmaker and medalsmith.

He was a Revolutionary War soldier, and he moved from Reading to Easton in 1784.

He had a little stone building on the corner of Bank and Northampton Street in Easton, and he had his shop and his house in the back.

He made approximately 465 tall case clocks, but many of the clocks are still in existence.

I have two.

My brother has four, but there are many throughout the U.S. Actually, he bought the land for the first workshop from William and Son and we still have have all of the history of the company.

We have the drawings too.

The first clocks.

We have the log books and the ledgers from the first customers he ever sold to.

You can put products that come out of the Bixler store today against the most beautiful jewelry from anywhere, and it looks no difference as beautiful.

Our atelier, which is our manufacturing facility, is in North America.

It's 30,000 square feet.

All our jewelry is custom made in our manufacturing facility in Montreal.

Our jewelry is designed by women.

Our accounting is primarily women executives, and our production team is led by women.

What's really unique about how we make jewelry is that we polish under microscope.

We cut our own diamonds from a special type of crystal that creates the highest luster of any type of diamond available.

The customer came in, she had about a four or five carat.

I was able to straighten it out and polish her platinum ring and her platinum matching wedding band in a matter of a couple of minutes While they waited.

People come in, they often have a picture on their phone of something to look like us to make.

We take that picture, we send it up to our manufacturing plant and custom design plant, and they come back with a cad.

We send that to the customer, they approve it, and then we proceed to make the piece for them.

The design team are all trained in engineering software.

We can also restore heirlooms.

We can even replicate heirlooms.

We can actually 3D scan the piece and create it as a new piece to the fraction of a millimeter identical to the way it was originally made.

We introduced 450 new styles per year, and when a sale is discontinued like these here, they're melted down so we can start all over again.

Nothing goes to waste.

You've been in business for over 200 years, so we're obviously doing something right and we really try to roll out the red carpet to our customers.

Our concierge service could include many different things.

It could include us picking you up and bringing you in here and having an experience with one of our very knowledgeable sales associates.

We don't really have a typical customer here at Bixler Jewelers, but the one thing they all have in common is that they're here to celebrate something special in their lives.

It's not uncommon for us to be sitting down and helping an engagement ring client whose parents and sometimes even grandparents have purchased their rings here at Bixlers.

Finally, we had a chance to sit down with Carol Kuplen, president of St Luke's University Hospital at Bethlehem, and chief nursing officer for St Luke's University Health Network.

She shared her thoughts about the oldest nursing school in America as well as St Luke's role in educating medical professionals for the future.

In 1884, I believe, is when the nursing school was established.

And what was nursing like then, and how has it changed?

Back in 1884, it was considered a vocation.

So you were not allowed to be married.

You were not allowed to have children.

You resided at the hospital for what?

How many?

Every year you were in training.

So back in the days of the 1800s, you learned by doing and it was by process of elimination very often.

We certainly have a stronger body of knowledge today, but we also have supports.

We have simulation education that helps our health care providers learn in a laboratory fashioned before they are caring for patients, which has been tremendous.

So it's very, very different today than it was back in the 1800s.

On the other hand, nursing is very much the same, focused on the care and caring of patients.

And is it true that St Luke's Nursing School is the oldest nursing school in America?

It is, Grover.

That's actually a Jeopardy question.

So we knew we made it when we arrived on Jeopardy.

But it truly is the oldest operating diploma program in the country.

A hospital cannot exist without nurses.

It is one of the foundational services that a hospital.

The reason it exists is because patients need 24/7 care and that care is provided by nurses.

We have nurse mentors throughout our entire network educating this next future group of nurses.

We've taken that a step farther here when we recognize that the school is a definite opportunity for our community members who want to pursue health care but might not have the resources to do that.

They have the ability to come and work at St Luke's right now and get free tuition to our School of nursing.

And you began as a nurse, right?

Your background is as a nurse.

Absolutely, yes.

And I am to a diploma graduate.

I'll add one last question, which is the feeling that the the St Luke's community, those folks who work at St Luke's, yourself included.

How is that long tradition make you feel?

How does it make your colleagues feel?

Pride is the word that comes to mind.

We are all St Luke's proud.

And when I think about how we have expanded that beyond our 14 hospitals, as well as all of our 350 sites, that culture is evident in every one of those practice settings.

So you keep making history, we keep making history, and we keep making our future.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Remember, you can catch this and every other episode of Lehigh Valley Rising on our website from all of us.

I'm Grover Silcox saying, See you next time.

BSI Corporate Benefits is a proud supporter of Lehigh Valley Rising.