Toy company’s national headquarters located right here in Bath

by Sheldon Ocker

It is not a Fortune 500 company, and technically, it is not an independent entity. But Plus-Plus USA is national in scope, and it is located in the corner offices of a small building in Bath rather than in a skyscraper in a major city.

Plus-Plus USA is the brainchild of Bret Faber, who operates the U.S. sales and marketing arm of Plus-Plus, whose world headquarters are in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the firm manufactures construction toys.

Until early 2020, Plus-Plus USA was located across Cleveland-Massillon Road from its current offices. But Faber needed more space. When he started the company seven years ago, it was comprised of two salesmen.

Faber has a business partner who operates the company’s warehouse and distribution center in Greenville, S.C. Plus-Plus in Bath, at 843 N. Cleveland-Massillon Rd., houses seven sales, marketing and customer service employees. Faber said he also has a corps of 85 independent sales reps who canvass potential customers across the country.

You can’t buy Plus-Plus sets at the Bath headquarters, but locally, they are sold at Joanne Stores, Barnes & Noble, Hobby Lobby and several independent toy stores. The building toys also are available on Amazon and the Plus-Plus website.

“We have a network of more than 5,000 independently-owned retailers, from toy stores to gift shops to art museums and children’s museums to zoos, aquariums and campgrounds,” Faber said.

LEGO, of course, is the construction toy everyone knows. Plus-Plus, which is privately owned, manufactures pieces in only one shape in two sizes and several colors, from which everything can be made. From this single part, kids can make all sorts of unicorns, dragons, superheroes, racecars or almost anything else the mind can imagine.

Some kids can use their imagination to build toys with no written instructions or pictures to guide them. But the company also provides booklets that show how to build various figures.

“It’s part arts-and-crafts, part modeling and part construction and building,” Faber said. “Plus-Plus is very popular in schools, because it has that sort of creative, open element where kids can make what they want.

“I think at Bath Elementary, they have sets in 30 classrooms, and they have them in the maker space at Richfield Elementary.”

Recommended ages for the larger pieces are 1-6; the smaller pieces are suited for children 5-12.

“Fourth and fifth grades are probably the perfect ages for Plus-Plus,” Faber said. “But we have fans who are 99.”

Faber said the sets begin at $7.99 for 70 pieces. Larger kits can sell for up to $50.

Although Faber grew up in Defiance in western Ohio and went to college at Miami in Oxford, he has lived in Boston and Los Angeles, where he met his wife.

“I lived in Akron in the ’90s and loved it, so wanted to come back,” he said. “You know, this building is over 100 years old. It was an old stagecoach stop. So when people came through here on Wye Road, they would stop here to rest, maybe take a nap. Yeah, it’s really a nice building.”

Feature image photo caption: Bret Faber shows just a couple of ways Plus-Plus construction blocks can be creatively used to create different figures.