Pleasant Mattress is a family-owned and operated mattress factory headquartered in Fresno, CA. Their energetic and marketing-savvy CEO Rion Morgenstern is the SSA’s newest board member. When we asked about his company, Rion and his team had this to say:
Rion
It’s the classic question that often reveals a lot about our real world experience—What advice would you give to your younger self? For Rion Morgenstern, the President and CEO Pleasant Mattress, the answer comes naturally, “Live a good story. Live a life that can be retold and people can tell stories about what you’ve done.” This insight quickly becomes a physical reality when Rion proudly gives you a personal tour of the Pleasant facility. As he speaks to their growing “House Of Brands” strategy that has helped triple the size of the company in the past six years, you begin to understand the importance of the STORY behind all of them.
“Brands have a reason for being. There are clear reasons why brands are important,” Morgenstern says. “Different brands serve different needs in the market, and that gives us an opportunity to stand out on retail floors.” He explains that the depth of this belief goes beyond just creating simple logos and taglines. Over the past 3 years, Rion and his team have created an immersive process to engineer a Brand’s DNA that aligns with customer mindsets, as opposed to just hitting price points or chasing demographics. Instead of chasing volume, low margins, and getting caught up in the bed-in-a-box dog fight, they create brand stories that actually mean something to consumers. Combining this with a benefit-focused and high-quality product strategy allows Pleasant to position at higher pricing. It has also allowed the company to expand its reach since high-value, premium-priced beds can be shipped across much larger sales territories.
At this point Morgenstern also makes it clear that they’re not just relying on some form of flashy marketing. “You’re not going to find a better value from any product on the market than what the Morgenstern family puts in a bed. I’m amazingly proud of the quality that my team produces and that we’re designing. The beds are world class, truly.” This commitment to quality has continued on strongly thanks to the hard-working history of Morgenstern’s family itself, which really shines as an American success story.
It all began when Ernst “Ernie” Morgenstern immigrated from Vienna to America and swiftly put his newfound freedom and entrepreneurial spirit to work by stitching together recycled bags for local industries. Within a few years, Ernie’s skills quickly evolved into making mattresses for the central valley area and Pleasant Mattress was born.
As the company grew into its own, so did Ernie’s son Herb. After graduating from Fresno State, Herb joined the company eventually becoming President. With the help of his wife Judy, Herb grew the family business from meager beginnings in chicken coops to a company manufacturing nearly 200,000 pieces per year in a 150,000 square-foot facility.
Father and Son
In 2011, Rion returned from a successful 20-year career in California’s interactive media sector by passionately putting his skill set to work with his dad. When you walk the floor with him and hear about all the new systems or efficiencies, it’s clear that he really jumped right in and spent a lot of time listening, learning, and optimizing. In 2014 Rion was promoted to President and CEO and while the company was already seeing fruits from their resurrection of the Chattam & Wells line, it wasn’t long before he set his sights on another classic brand story as well.
“My father often talked fondly of McRoskey, and I grew up admiring the brand since I was young. We now feel so privileged to be part of such a remarkable brand.” Morgenstern passionately explains that the San Francisco mattress company is also a third generation family business so, the connection was going to be deeper than just a simple business transaction. The Pleasant team started a 2-year process of working with closely with Robin McRoskey Azvedo to ensure both parties goals, standards, and values truly aligned. Meticulous training efforts went into ensuring that McRoskey’s incredible craftsmanship continued by creating a stand alone “McRoskey Works” building at the Pleasant facility. “McRoskey Works is an all-star team of mastercrafters and we are continuing to create life changing sleep.”
Rion and Robin
McRoskey Brand
It’s this dedication to life-changing sleep that also shines in their new collection. The time tested techniques and hallmarks of McRoskey remain in the new Soma Collection, while additions such as an innovative calico pocket coil system has enhanced comfort and even further reduced motion transfer. Morgenstern respectfully pays homage to the fact that, “It took 90 years for someone to create a coil system that could even come close to enhancing the original McRoskey design.” Noting that this wasn’t easy to do, but was really made possible by the tireless team at Pleasant. He candidly admits, “I’m really most proud of the culture we have here at Pleasant Mattress. We have a culture of appreciation and one of hard work.”
And that hard work really shows. Currently McRoskey, Spring Air, Chattam & Wells, Nature’s Rest,, Eclipse, Eastman House and Pure Talalay Bliss, as well as regional brands Cannon, Maxx and are all being produced here. And yes, while Morgenstern didn’t give any specifics, there probably will be some others added to the house of brands strategy soon. We guess you could say that the story of Pleasant Mattress continues to be written, and there are many more stories to come.