Manufacturing veteran buys struggling Springfield Granite Co.

Every day after work, Sheila Collins drives her 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue back to her 1,500-square-foot rental house.

That may not seem like the lush life of the owner of a manufacturing company that grosses $2 million a year, but it is.

Collins decided two years ago to sacrifice things like new cars and houses for the one thing that mattered most – owning a business.

On Dec. 7, Collins bought the assets of Springfield Granite Co., 3702 E. Kerr, and changed the name to Springfield Granite-Plus.

“Those were easy choices for me,” she said of streamlining her personal life, “because look at the cool business I’m in. Everything got put into the ‘buy-a-business-fund.’”

Collins, originally from upstate New York, is a 25-year veteran of manufacturing. She spent most of the 1990s in Springfield as general manager of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. before moving to Indiana to be director of U.S. manufacturing for a division of Bristol-Myers Squibb.

In 2004, she decided to act on her dream of business ownership. She resigned from Bristol-Myers Squibb, sold her house in Indiana, moved into a rental house in Springfield and started looking for a company to buy.

Debt relief

Scott and Tracy Hardwick opened Springfield Granite Co. in 1999. They sold its assets to Collins for an undisclosed price after negotiations began in late July.

During their tenure, the Hardwicks ran into some financial trouble. When Collins came calling, the Hardwicks were a year into a 10-year reorganization plan to pay off $1.45 million in debts.

The Hardwicks couldn’t be reached for this story, but their attorney, David Schroeder, said, “The sale of the assets resulted in the payment of all lien-secured creditors or lien claimants and surplus cash. The surplus cash basically has been reinvested for the purpose of continuing to make payments to creditors under the bankruptcy plan.”

Schroeder said Scott Hardwick is helping Collins with the transition.

Meanwhile, Collins was careful to say that she bought the company’s assets, not the company itself. She didn’t acquire any of the Hardwicks’ debt, she said.

Collins didn’t use a business broker. Instead, she used attorney Dwayne Fulk of Neale & Newman to navigate the deal amidst the bankruptcy.

She also secured a $1.88 million Small Business Administration loan from UMB Bank.

Solid operation

Springfield Granite-Plus, which is held by Collins’ SSC Enterprises LLC, leases two buildings totaling 15,000 square feet, which are owned by the Hardwicks.

The company cuts and polishes large slabs of granite or marble to make items such as countertops, desktops and window seals, Collins said.

Its 18 employees deliver and install the products.

Currently, about 70 percent of Collins’ customers are professional builders, though she’d like to grow that number. The rest of her customers are private homeowners.

“After making corrugated boxes and baby formula for 25 years,” Collins said with a laugh, “the idea of working with something as fun as granite was pretty appealing.”