At 16, Landmark Plastics would be considered a teen-ager — especially in an industry in which many companies are entering their third century. Still, with 200 employees, Landmark is certainly a contender.
Bob Merzweiler, a CPA, started Landmark in 1984 with his father, who retired soon after following a career working in many different plastics businesses. At the time, the two saw a opportunity in making packaging products for the greenhouse industry, based on the large concentration of greenhouse growers in the Ohio and Michigan areas.
Landmark’s early years gave the company a jump-start in the industry, says Merzweiler, president and CEO. “The greenhouse industry was going through a very rapid growth at the time, because the Kmarts and Wal-Marts of the world were expanding rapidly and adding garden centers.”
Landmark uses two manufacturing processes: injection molding, which is how its hanging baskets and pots are manufactured; and thermo-forming, which is how the annual flower packs and trays are produced.
Merzweiler won’t disclose sales figures for the privately held company, which moved into a new 225,000-square-foot facility near the Rubber Bowl four years ago.
Because Landmark manufactures and markets its own product line (as opposed to a piece of another company’s product), it has not faced many of the competitive hurdles that its peers in the plastics industry have, Merzweiler says. In addition, it’s had the rare good luck of having almost no foreign competition and very little local competition.
Still, being part of an industry with such a strong foothold in the area has not gone unnoticed by Merzweiler.
“We have a lot of support services available to us that you probably wouldn’t have in a lot of other areas,” he says. Merzweiler says that the number of resources available in the area not only entered into his decision to create the business, but that Landmark frequently leans on local programs for personnel training and technical assistance.
“If you require assistance with machinery maintenance, there are people that supply parts and work on them here. There are [also] people in machining businesses that can assist in making tooling, and a lot of other resources in terms of training programs geared toward plastics.”
Landmark uses training programs offered by the University of Akron for both its management and hands-on processors, and the company has enrolled employees in programs offered by the local office of the National Tooling Institute. In addition, Merzweiler helped found the Polymer Processor Association, a statewide organization based in Akron, and is on the national board of the Society of the Plastics Industry.
“From those opportunities, you get a pretty broad insight into what’s going on within the industry in general,” he says. “The national group views Ohio as No. 1 in the country in plastics processing. A lot of people refer to this area as the Polymer Valley.
“I would agree that it is, and I don’t see anything that’s going to change that.”
Connie Swenson ([email protected]) is editor of SBN.
