Arvco Container Corp. (CONT’D FROM PAGE 1)
business grows and outgrows their ability to run it the way they want to run it." Greg’s first task, as he described it, was to huddle with the company’s management team. “I called all the manag- ers, and I say, ‘Guys, I’ve got a revelation for you: You’re managers; I expect you to manage. I can’t do it the way my dad did,’” he says. Greg taking the reins of the business in 1989 began a period of refocusing Arvco’s mission. The company’s cap- ital equipment was aging, and the customer base—which was at that point largely automotive and consumer appli- ances—was also shifting. Arvco’s plant in Warsaw, which was built, in part, to serve the Whirlpool parts business in LaPorte, was hobbled by extensive capital equipment needs Greg in his new position could not immediately jus- tify. “The big thing we looked at was our business mix at the Warsaw plant,” he remembers. “We did a lot of folding and gluing down there. Our biggest customer was Whirlpool for their parts boxes, and most of the other business we were running in Kalamazoo anyway. And Warsaw, 73 miles away, is not that far. So, we made the difficult decision to close that plant and put all our money back into the mother ship.” ‘Invert the Bell Curve’ The consolidation of Arvco’s production assets and the reinvestment in capital equipment began in earnest in
just wanted his own thing; he wanted to make corrugated boxes. That was in 1971.” The company’s first location in Kalamazoo had two Langston letterpress printer slotters, a slitter, bandsaw, and taper. In 1975, after another move to its current lo- cation near downtown Kalamazoo, George acquired a used Hooper-Swift 78-inch corrugator. He also opened a sheet plant in Warsaw, Indiana, in 1974 and a sheet plant in Northwood, Ohio, near Toledo, in 1978. Following the bankruptcy of Grand Rapids Packaging in 1980, Arvco picked up a number of Grand Rapids Pack- aging’s salespeople, expanding its market reach north and leading to the opening of a sheet plant in Cadillac, Mich- igan, in 1982. The following year, Arvco moved its North- wood plant to Delta, Ohio, and added a corrugator, a move that Greg admits was not the best one for the company. “We didn’t invest enough in the plant to keep it economi- cally viable,” he says. In the meantime, though, Arvco was investing heavily in its Kalamazoo facility, adding a second corrugator—an 87-inch model—and new Hycorr (now Kolbus) rotary die cutters. Then in 1989, George passed away. Greg, at age 28, became president of the company. Reflecting on the tran- sition he had to lead at that time, Greg says, “As happens with a lot of entrepreneurial guys that start businesses, the
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