By Hillary GavenDaily News staff writer
Paperchine engineers Ed Collins, left, and Glenn Kramer stand by a portion of a papermaking machine, which adds shiny coatings to magazine pages and flyers. Business at Paperchine made a strong rebound in 2010.Staff photo by Hillary Gavan
ROCKTON — After a rough year in 2009, Paperchine has increased business by 50 percent in 2010, and President Laurie Wicks is looking forward to 2011.
“The market just turned around. It looks like 2011 will be a good year,” Wicks said.
Paperchine is a supplier of paper-making machines and parts, with an engineering and service staff which often travels to paper manufacturers around North America to repair or make upgrades to their machines. With paper machines being about the size of a city block, they are generally repaired or rebuilt at the mill site, but in some instances parts are returned to Paperchine for repair and shipped back to customers.
Paperchine, 1155 Prairie Hill Road, Rockton, began as a vision shared by four former Beloit Corporation executives — Laurie Wicks, James Ewald, Daniel Morris and Larry Voss.
The company was founded in March of 2000, and has experienced steady growth. It is housed in the former Beloit Corporation’s research center, next door to Chemtool.
Paperchine currently has a staff of 120 employees who are engineers, executives, technicians and administrative staff. About 90 percent of Paperchine’s current staff are former Beloit Corporation employees. The company has been named twice as one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. by Entrepreneur magazine.
About three years ago the company added a full service finishing division located in Chicopee, Mass., which provides engineering for paper machine winders. This added a product that Paperchine did not have by hiring the engineers from a competitor when they closed their office in Massachusetts.
Paperchine kept the engineers’ wishes to stay in Massachusetts.
“Our philosophy has been that if you hire the best engineers, you’ll eventually have the best product. With electronic media, we can transfer engineering drawings back and forth,” Wicks said.
Paperchine has also added an expert belt threading team headquartered in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada, to add a new product line.
Wicks explained how Paperchine provides many jobs in the local economy. In addition to their 120 employees, 90 percent of the manufacturing work is done by more than a couple dozen local subcontractors.
However, there were some challenges the company encountered in 2009 with the economy and some cuts in employment had to be made. Orders fell off by 40 percent. The problem was, Wicks said, that some of the paper companies Paperchine services were in severe debt in 2009. Some of the traditional companies had racked up debt from acquiring other companies whereas a number of private equity groups acquired a number of paper companies.
“There was a lot of debt in the companies which are our customers, and in 2009 all they could do was service their debt,” Wicks said.
The good news is that in 2010 business bounced back. Although Paperchine’s orders still aren’t up to its highest years, business dramatically increased over 2009.
Wicks explained how it’s difficult to predict the economy today.
“Before you could look ahead two to three years. Now we look ahead only a quarter or two, and look at requests for proposals that are coming in. You just don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.
Wicks said there are some concerns over the pending changes with the national health care reform initiatives.
“Anything that takes money away from businesses are concerns,” he said. “If you put more money in the hands of the people who create jobs, they can create more jobs. Countries which are cutting corporate tax rates have economies that are improving,” he said.
He, however, was pleased that the George W. Bush era tax cuts were extended, and that the recent elections have ushered in change.
“It should help the business climate,” he said.
About 95 percent of Paperchine’s business is in North America. Although market segments such as newspaper and paper for books is down due to the Internet and electronic books such as the Ipad and Kindle, he said there is still a strong demand for magazines and advertising flyers and catalogues. Internet advertising hasn’t been as promising as some had hoped, because most people will immediately shut down pop up ads. He added people will often keep a catalogue and read it at their leisure.
Published: Wednesday, January 5, 2011 11:29 AM CST Original
