Engineered Packaging beats the heat

Jim Stout has never been on a roller coaster ride like this before.

The owner of Engineered Packaging Inc. watched his business burn to the ground, acquired a Marshfield competitor, bused employees 25 miles away to meet client orders and acquired a historic building in center city Springfield that needed rehabilitation all in the span of one summer month in 2003.

That was just the beginning of the most trying year of Stout's life, he said.

"A year ago we burned to the ground on Trafficway. We had nothing. It was all gone," Stout said from his new office on East St. Louis, the former home of Springfield Seed Co.

Much has changed in one year.

"It's been a heck of a year. It's been a roller coaster like you can't believe," Stout said.

The tumultuous ride ended this summer when Stout led Engineered Packaging, which does more than $3 million a year, and its nearly 60 employees back to Springfield upon completing 12 months of on-again, off-again renovations to the 1920s-built building at 1350 E. St. Louis, which Stout bought weeks after the fire. The company temporarily moved operations to a Marshfield plant while renovations were being completed in Springfield.

Though Engineered Packaging has been manufacturing its industrial foam packaging products in the new Springfield plant for only a month, he and the employees already have made it home, Stout said.

"It was a run-down old building and we've brought it back to life," he said. "We're very proud of it."

Fiery tale

Stout's life-changing journey began July 8, 2003, after a routine Tuesday lunch at Mr. Goodcents on South Glenstone, a few blocks from his 1749 E. Trafficway business.

"When I came out of the building, I could see the smoke. I knew what was going on," Stout said.

"My first thoughts were of the people. Did we get them all out? Are they safe?"

After learning no employees were harmed and everyone had safely evacuated, Stout shifted gears.

"Then you start thinking about other things," he said. "What are (we) going to do? How am I going to continue? How am I going to keep these people employed?"

Stout quickly answered the first of many significant questions about the fate of his company: rebuild the business or take the insurance money and run? Stout said he stayed true to his employees when he spurned the financial temptation.

"I made that decision standing out there watching the place burn. I was not going to do anything but rebuild. I didn't quite at that point know how, but I knew I would somehow."

Stout said a "series of minor miracles" happened next.

The buy

Stout had been considering acquiring competitor Creative Plastics in Marshfield and had already completed the due diligence. But the day before the fire, Stout told owner Bobbie Seltz he wasn't interested.

"As I was standing out there watching it burn, I called him and said, Do not sell it to anybody else. I will buy it.'"

They signed a deal the next morning.

The company hardly missed a beat; Stout said a day and a half later it was back in business, albeit by bussing employees to the new plant in Marshfield.

"We could manufacture everything we needed to manufacture during that period of time. And it gave us time to order new machinery," Stout said of the acquisition. "We didn't lose any customers at all."

Building moves

The next of Stout's miracles was securing a plant to replace the 20,000-square-foot facility lost in the fire for which a cause was never found, according to Stout.

In February 2003, Stout made an offer on Springfield Seed Company's 58,000-square-foot building at 1350 E. St. Louis. The offer returned to the table and on July 31, 2003, Stout closed on the acquisition for an undisclosed price.

The next task was rehabilitating a structure more than 80 years old. But the real challenge was to do so while Springfield Seed continued to work there. Stout said minor repairs were made in the following six months, with the remainder of work occurring this year; Springfield Seed moved out in January.

Though Stout declined to disclose the renovation costs, he said it was comparable to building new in an industrial park.

As for the building lost in the fire, Stout has revived that, too. But it took some encouragement from commercial contractor Kit Carson of Carson-Mitchell Inc.

After the city condemned the building, Stout learned it would cost $150,000 for clean-up and tear-down. Carson told Stout to save it and for $300,000 he could rebuild it.

"So it cost me about $150,000 to bring it back to life," Stout said.

The space is now used as a warehouse for raw foam and sponge products some 5 feet long, 4 feet wide and 18 inches thick. Engineered Packaging manufactures industrial foam packaging primarily for the automotive industry, as well as a variety of sponge products under the Ozark Mountain Outdoor Products banner.

Moving on

Stout keeps a reminder of the fire in his new office. It's a drawing his artistic wife, Charli, made of the couple's houseboat. The plastic frame that supports it is shriveled and charred.

"I wouldn't wish this upon anybody," Stout said. "It's very grueling not only for the owner, but also for the employees there is stress all the way around.

"But it's been a great learning experience for me. It showed me that my employees are true blue employees. They've stuck with me through thick and thin and that's worth quite a bit."