Featured Member -- Urban Edge Shading Inc.

Urban Edge Shading Inc. is a very young company with a long history. This may sound odd, but its background will explain why.

In 1980, Hans Munger immigrated to Canada to take over a struggling little company with 3 employees, which was the Canadian subsidiary of Silent Gliss International AG of Bern, Switzerland, a global manufacturer of sophisticated window treatment systems.

The company grew quite rapidly and in 1993, Hans was able to undertake a management buyout of the company, continuing its relationship with Silent Gliss under a licence agreement.

By the year 2000, Silent Gliss Canada had ventured from window treatment systems for the architectural building industry into developing and manufacturing shading devices and sun visors for buses, coaches, transit vehicles, recreational vehicles and agricultural tractors. As a result of its growth of 30-40% per year, a separate business unit under the name Auto-Motion Shade was established. AMS relocated to a separate manufacturing plant across the street and separate management teams were appointed for the two divisions. Today, AMS holds a 90% market share in manual and motorized sun visors in the North American transit vehicle market.

At the end of December 2008, the licence agreement with Silent Gliss International was terminated and on 1st January 2009 Urban Edge Shading Inc. was incorporated, becoming the official successor of Silent Gliss Canada Limited, without the proprietary Silent Gliss products (The AMS division was also incorporated under the name Auto-Motion Shade Inc.). This changeover had been in preparation for some time, with uniquely different, complimentary products being sold next to Silent Gliss systems for some time under the Urban Edge collection label. The step at the end of December from the Urban Edge collection to a full program under Urban Edge Shading Inc. was therefore a relatively smooth transition.

Today, despite a somewhat sluggish construction market, Urban Edge Shading Inc. remains very successful in working with architects and designers to provide sophisticated, high-quality and unique products for homes, offices, public buildings as well as the institutional and health care market. Many of its components are produced in Europe, while other hardware is being produced exclusively for Urban Edge by Auto-Motion Shade’s own manufacturing plant in the P.R. of China.

Please visit the Urban Edge website at www.urbanedgeshading.com for more information or talk to Hans at (905) 470-6901 (ext. 233).