Maiman Company plans to expand in Partnership park

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

The Maiman Company plans next year to open the door on a new venture. The company will build a 180,000- to 200,000-square-foot expansion on the 22 acres of land it has just purchased in the Partnership Industrial Center.

The Springfield manufacturer of stile-and-rail doors will add wooden flush doors to its production once it completes the expansion, expected to be open in about a year and a half, said its owners, Tim and Jane Bennett.

The company purchased 22 acres adjacent to the southern border of the property it now owns in the Partnership Industrial Center. The new building on that site will house the new wooden flush doors operation exclusively; none of the stile-and-rail door mill will move over, Jane Bennett said.

The new center is planned to manufacture 1,000 wooden flush doors per day and will employ about another 40 people. Maiman currently occupies a 45,000-square-foot building in the Partnership Industrial Center and employs 45.

To raise capital for the venture, the Maiman Company is planning to make a private placement equity offering which will be available in the next 30 days. Now, the Bennetts are the only stockholders in the company.

"We saw this opportunity to get involved in manufacturing the wooden flush doors, and we will need a very large expansion, and therefore additional capital to launch the project, so the idea of making this offering came forward," Tim Bennett said.

"This new operation should complement our current production and give us the opportunity to provide the complete package to our customers when they need doors," Tim Bennett said.

The stile-and-rail doors are custom-made, paneled doors, while the wooden flush doors are the flat style of doors, Tim Bennett said. Maiman supplies stile-and-rail doors for projects all over the world, and sells directly to architects, contractors and others in the construction business.

Maiman is the specified supplier of doors for Marriott Hotels and has also provided doors for large projects such as universities and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints churches, including the Morman temple in St. Louis.

The two types of doors have different applications: the stile-and-rail doors may be used, for example, in the president's office of a university, while the flush doors would be used for that university's dorm room doors, Tim Bennett said.

"It simply depends on the type of use, whether a project will need a flush door or a stile-and-rail," Tim Bennett said.

The time has come to expand the company's business into the wooden flush door side because Maiman's clients have asked them to, Jane Bennett said.

"We're doing this because our customers wanted one-stop shopping. We have a tremendous reputation in the building community, and there are a lot of people out there who want to buy the total package from us," Tim Bennett said.

Having both types of doors available makes the company "better able to solve the customer's problems," Tim Bennett said.

"It should eliminate a lot of headaches of having the work spread out among a number of different companies," he added.

Like the stile-and-rail doors, the new doors will be custom-made and the company will keep no stock.

"Every door here has an opening mark on it; in other words, each door is intended for a specific use. We don't keep any in stock, and we won't keep any of the wooden flush doors in stock, either," Tim Bennett said.

The Bennetts chose to raise capital for the expansion through a private placement offering because they said they want to give local people the opportunity to invest in the company, rather than making a public offering or inviting venture capitalists.

"We have talked to venture capitalists from all over the world, and what it comes down to for us is that we would like to make this available to local people," Tim Bennett said.

Once the offering is made, it should be available for 60 to 90 days, Tim Bennett said.

The Bennetts purchased Maiman in 1990, and they have received awards for their innovations in production and management at their plant.

The company has been noted for its bonus program, in which employees are awarded bonuses based on net after-tax cash flow.

In 1997, each employee received $5,500, Tim Bennett said.

PHOTO CAPTION:

Jane and Tim Bennett have received national recognition for their innovations in production and management.

PHOTO CAPTION:

Bobby Goodman works on a stile-and-rail door at the Maiman Company.[[In-content Ad]]