MAGNOLIA – A digital forensics company that holds government and business contracts and has built custom devices for Tesla, Apple and Intel, among others, now occupies 18,000 square feet in a historic building that used to be a furniture store and peach processing plant in the heart of Magnolia.
Sumuri is just one of many small businesses that are feeling the heat after President Donald Trump imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese goods and a 10% tariff on all global imports earlier this month.
For co-owners Ailyn Whalen and her husband Steve, Sumuri continues to be a part of the American dream. The company has grown to include 40 employees since it was founded in 2010, about six years before Coons joined Ailyn Whalen and her daughter for their citizenship ceremony.
“Ailyn is very humble, but she’s very proud of the fact that she’s a U.S. citizen and what she’s done with this company. . . This company would not exist without her. . . We went from the bonus room in the attic and added the workstation line, and we were doing that in the basement. From there, after a couple of years, the plan was to build a pole barn on the back of the property. Before we could even get the plans drawn, it was too small,” Vice President of Business Development Jason Roslewicz said.
The company moved to a 5,000 square-foot facility in Camden-Wyoming but quickly outgrew even that, leading the owners to find Sumuri’s current location in Magnolia.
Now, with extra space, the company has grown to support a variety of entities seeking help in preparing evidence for court as they work to put perpetrators behind bars through the use of the custom-built, computer-based workstations.
Roslewicz expanded on their services, adding that each device, complete with digital forensics software, can run anywhere from $10,000 to more than $100,000 depending on the client and the need, including Homeland Security needs which generally require more storage and software.
“The tariffs are a problem for us because we use aluminum for our workstations while our competitors make their items out of plastic,” he said. “Anything that I have to absorb as far as tariffs, I really cannot pass on to my customers because we are already spending three times what they spend on the plastic ones which is why we got so good at what we do.”
Although Roslewicz said it’s possible to custom make their workstations from materials sourced in the United States for special requests, most of their materials come from overseas sources like China, increasing the worry over the tariff conversation.
“I love the fact that we’re trying to bring back manufacturing to the United States, but I’m completely opposed to the method,” he said. “If something doesn’t happen soon, the prices are going up and the shelves are going to be empty. That is going to directly impact us and the 40 people we employ here if something doesn’t happen within the next few weeks, to be honest.”
It’s a tale U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) has heard from companies across the country that are now crying out in response to the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“I’ve heard from dozens of companies across the country from Delaware and across the country concerned about the unpredictability of Trump’s approach to the tariffs,” he told the Delaware Business Times during a tour Thursday at Sumuri’s facility. “The most consistent thing I hear from small and large businesses is they want predictability. If they know what the tax regime, regulatory regime or the tariff regime is going to be, they can plan for it, they can price for it. There’s been wild swings in Trump’s approach to tariffs.”
The most challenging swing, to date, he added, has been the 10% tariff across the board which he sees as making U.S. companies less competitive as they continue to battle the “on again, off again” situation.
“If they don’t have a clear path towards understanding what the tariffs are going to be on content coming from other countries, whether the EU [European Union] or China, on aluminum coming in from other parts of the world, they’re going to have a very hard time setting competitive prices for the rest of the year,” Coons said.
A coalition of states has recently filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeking an injunction to the tariffs. Delaware joined this lawsuit as of this week, according to Attorney General Kathy Jennings.
