The company has marched on even as the industry shifted first to the Southern states and then abroad, lured by low cost foreign manufacturers, most notably those in China.

Now in its fourth generation, the family business has succeeded by carving out a lucrative, expanding market niche, making top of the line fabrics, including silks, mainly used for high-end upholstery.

You won't find Weave Corp. products in many stores; mostly they are bought by interior designers and quality furniture makers. Company fabric, for instance, decorated the Camp David presidential retreat while Ronald Reagan was in office. It graced the chairs on which British and Chinese officials sat as Britain ceded Hong Kong to China in 1997.

And Berkley is confident that by mining the same market, he can continue to make fabrics in the US, going abroad only to expand his line and buttress his profitability.

We are very efficient with a high level of worker productivity, he said. In the long run, I believe that we will become increasingly customized, increasingly exclusive, and that will allow us to prosper.

By making short runs of material made to order — sometimes as small as a 25-yard roll — with a rapid turnaround, Weave Corp can provide quality products and service that no foreign manufacturer can match, he said.

It does so with 168 employees in headquarters in Hackensack, a sales office in New York and a factory at Denver, Pa, in the heart of Amish country. The company also contracts for the manufacture of silk fabric in China. Revenue, under $50 million a year, is rising at about 3 percent a year, Berkley said.

The company's competitive edge is dedication to quality, said Karl Spilhaus, president of the National Textile Association, a Boston-based trade group.

While the Chinese have mastered simpler weaves, he said, they neither have the technical ability nor the desire; they are more interested in apparel than taking on the 20 or so US-based weavers who compete with Weave Corp for the top end of the American market.

The company's other secret weapon is Berkley himself, Spilhaus said.

He's very capable. He's smart and he's a good people person, Spilhaus said. It's a company that's got the personal stamp of a very personable owner.

Berkley's grandfather, Louis Cohen, a South African immigrant, began the company — then a silk mill — in Paterson in 1910. Cohen passed it to his son-in-law, who passed it to his two sons-in-law — one of whom was Berkley's father, Robert. He gave the company's reins to Roger in 1995.

The company's focus, over time, has changed to meet the rapidly evolving environment, mostly through innovation. In the 1950s, Weave Corp became the first in the country to use the European-style Jacquard weaving machine, a faster and cleaner process, Berkley said.

Other innovations that have kept the company competitive include its use of shuttleless weaving machines — which are faster, more versatile and create fewer defects. In 1979, the company was the first in the US to use electronic Jacquard weaving machinery.

The company closed its Paterson mills in 1967, as much of the industry around it fled to cheaper, Southern states, Berkley said.

The equipment was ancient, he said. The building stood in the way of Route 80 and looked like it was going to go.

In its place, Weave Corp opened the Denver, Pa, factory, which has since grown to 160,000 square feet. Squeezed by high raw-material prices, the company stopped making silk in the 1960s and switched production from fabric for apparel and ties, to upholstery material.

Berkley joined the company in 1973 as the transition commenced. Until then, he had sought — somewhat unsuccessfully — to become a tenured teacher. He was brought to his senses by one of his old high school teacher.

He said, 'You don't work well with anybody', Berkley, 59, remembers. You need to be your own boss.

He said his father, who was about to sell the company, agreed to hold off while his son got a taste of the business. It felt good, Berkley said. He took over the fledgling upholstery material line and helped make it the centerpiece of the company, closing down the manufacture of material for men's ties, which faced tough competition from low cost Korean manufacturers.

In 1999, Weave Corp began getting silk made in China. And in February of this year, the company began selling weatherwize, a new line of material that doesn't fade in the sun, mostly for use in garden furniture.

Berkley said his drive to keep pushing the company forward comes from the exhilaration of developing and selling product.

I love watching the looms weave, he said.

I love watching the fabrics being created. I go to the mill pretty regularly.

A family pattern for success — North Jersey Media Group