July 30, 2018
Anniversary milestones are always significant events. The corrugated industry, like many other industries, is filled with people and companies who made lasting impressions and significant contributions. Had they been able to remain in business, S&S Corrugated Box Machinery Co. of Brooklyn, N.Y., would have celebrated their 100th anniversary in April 2017. This tremendous milestone went by pretty much unnoticed by our industry. Not for me, though. I noticed because this is an exceptionally big event in my life. As a self-appointed historian of all things S&S, as well as the collector of a wide variety of S&S memorabilia, I believe this milestone event deserves to be noticed.
Independent corrugated box manufacturers and S&S shared close relationships throughout the years. After all, independent corrugators were usually family-owned businesses, and so was S&S.
S&S was founded by two gentlemen whose names were Isaac Stern and Eugene St. Eve. They were actually friends who had worked together at other companies before launching their own business. It was only a few years after the startup of S&S when St. Eve had to leave for personal reasons. Stern purchased St. Eve’s share of the business but kept the name S&S. The company went on to develop and produce some of the finest corrugated boxmaking equipment ever made. In its heyday, S&S had manufacturing facilities in Brooklyn; Haarlem, Netherlands; Leiston, England; and Dundalk, Ireland, as well as a licensing agreement with Ishikawa Heavy Industries of Japan. There was even a small manufacturing plant in California where S&S stocked a tremendous amount of spare parts, making them the only machinery maker with East and West Coast facilities. Independent corrugated box manufacturers and S&S shared close relationships throughout the years. After all, independent corrugators were usually family-owned businesses, and so was S&S. There were a lot of commonalities and natural bonds between them. As a way to assist independent boxmakers to acquire machinery that was state-of-the-art, S&S offered these companies deferred payment plans and generous financing terms. S&S was instrumental in helping these companies get off the ground and on their way to success.
As I enter my 38th year of service to the corrugated industry, I begin to think back to where and how it all started. Like so many in our great industry, I got involved in corrugated completely by accident. I did not go to school to become a boxmaker. Actually, I’m a “car guy.” I was working for Chrysler Corp. and was on the fast track to becoming a district service manager. Remember the movie My Cousin Vinny? When Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) explains to the judge why she is an expert in general automotive knowledge? Her father, her grandfather, brothers, uncles, and cousins were all mechanics. Welcome to my world. My position and the training program I was studying under at Chrysler were eliminated due to the financial crisis the company was in. This all took place just about a month before Lee Iacocca took over as president and saved the company. If the timing had been a little different, I might have stayed there and spent my career in the auto industry.
As technical service manager for Stafford Corrugated Products, I have the privilege of visiting box plants all over the country. In my travels, I am constantly on the lookout for S&S machinery still in operation producing high-quality corrugated products. It never ceases to amaze me the overall number of S&S machines in service—especially when you consider that S&S has been out of business for more than 30 years. As a full-line manufacturer of all corrugated machinery, they certainly produced a great number and variety of machines—everything from stand-alone units like sample tables, all the way to full-size corrugators. Often, I will be at a customer’s plant, and I will see in their design lab a modern, state-of-the-art sample maker with full computer control. Right alongside that will be an S&S model FD sample table. You’ve probably seen one. It has large hand shears for cutting the board and a foot-operated score bar to impress the scores into the sheet. Hard to believe that there was once a time when the sample maker had to produce his samples one by one on a machine like this. However, this is how it was done, and just about every box plant had one of these machines in use.
In today’s plants, you do not see many full-line S&S corrugators still in service. However, it is quite common to see individual components from the original corrugator still in operation. S&S double backers, glue stations, roll stands, and preheaters/preconditioners are still in use, running in line with modern high-speed equipment. What you do see in many plants today are S&S flexo folder gluers and printer slotters. The model ZLR was arguably the best machine of its kind ever built. The proof of that statement is in the number of ZLR machines still in service today.
S&S double backers, glue stations, roll stands, and preheaters/preconditioners are still in use, running in line with modern high-speed equipment.
Before the days of the flexo folder gluer, a typical box plant used a printer slotter and a glue or taper machine to complete the finished RSC. S&S offered three different model printer slotters. The Captain was a 35×80 machine. The Admiral was a 50×100 machine. And for those who needed something bigger, there was the Gargantuan, which was a 72×140 machine. Although by around 1960 S&S stopped building this class of machine, there are still many that operate in box plants all over the world every day. While S&S is probably most remembered for their bulletproof flexo folder gluers, let us not forget some of the other machinery they produced. There was a flatbed die cutter called the Model C Diemaster, straight-line folder gluers, the Overhung Eccentric Slotter (see product brochure at right), and a plethora of tapers, folders, slitters, and more.
S&S printed several volumes of product brochures promoting the company’s machinery, some of which is still useful today. The brochure at left was printed in the 1950s.
When I began my career with S&S, I was still in school and separated from Chrysler for well over a year. I had a couple of jobs in between, but nothing that really interested me. Back in that era, there was no internet, so job hunting was a task relegated to the Help Wanted section of the Sunday New York Times. I accidentally stumbled across an ad for a company that was looking for a field service coordinator for a manufacturer of corrugated boxmaking machinery. They were not looking for direct experience in the box industry, but instead someone who had a background in service management. I thought there might be a fit with my Chrysler experience, so I mailed (as in snail mail) my résumé and waited for a response.
Eventually, I was brought in for an interview. I was completely taken aback by the manufacturing capabilities of this company. I could say this even after having spent a lot of time on automotive production lines. The various machine shops and assembly areas, all in several buildings next to each other, were a sight to behold. I was offered the position and started work, learning all about this exciting industry. Turns out, it was one of the best decisions I had ever made in my life. I was fortunate to have a boss who saw my interest in the machinery and allowed me to travel out in the field alongside the service technicians, in order to gain firsthand knowledge about the equipment and its usage.
In my current position, I spend a great deal of time working with machine crews, their supervisors, and managers of box plants. It saddens me when I am talking with a die cut or corrugator supervisor about an S&S machine or something that S&S developed, and they do not recognize the name or have any idea who or what S&S was. The list of innovations or firsts that S&S provided to our industry is incredible. I will often go into a customer’s plant and come across a particular S&S machine that I have a personal history with, and it will literally bring tears to my eyes. It might have been a machine for which I was part of the original installation team or one for which I accompanied the field service tech on a major repair or retrofit. It’s nice to know that after all these years, both that machine and I are still working.
Even though the actual anniversary was April 2017, let’s take a moment today and wish S&S a belated happy 100th anniversary. They were a company that meant so much to not only me, but also our industry.
Ian Carlton is manager of technical services at Stafford Corrugated Products and has spent much of his career dedicated to preserving the legacy of S&S. He can be reached at 856-761-4500 or ianc@go2stafford.com.
