November 30, 2017
If Albert K. Hoodwin were around to see what his grandson, Al Hoodwin, has done with Michigan City Paper Box Co., you’d have to think he would be impressed. For starters, it’s a 113-year-old company. Plenty of good businesses don’t last that long—and the company is still thriving. The rigid paperboard box manufacturer—based in Michigan City, Ind.—has state-of-the-art technology throughout its plant and is known for its award-winning retail store boxes.
Albert K., sadly, never met his grandson. In 1904, Hoodwin, a Russian immigrant, started manufacturing paper boxes on the second floor of an old factory building in Michigan City. Sixteen years later, he moved the business to an old church building and then to a manufacturing plant that had been a shirt factory. But in 1928, the 50-year-old was driving two employees home when his car was at a railroad crossing and hit by a train.
“I am really glad I came back when I did. I’m glad I got to spend 11 to 12 years of my dad’s life working with him.”
Hoodwin was killed, and one of his employees perished, as well. The other employee lost a leg but survived, says the younger Hoodwin, who is now 53 and has been running the business since 1993.
Al Hoodwin walks the line at Michigan City Paper Box.
After Albert K. Hoodwin died, his wife, Lillian, 37, took over the company while raising two young sons. Later, in the 1940s, Lillian’s sons, Louis and Fred, joined the company. Ultimately, the older brother, Lou, would run the business while Fred became the plant manager. Many years later, Lou’s son, Al Hoodwin, would grow up and would also be involved in the family’s business. During his high school days, Al was sweeping floors, making deliveries, and working on production lines. Then, after Al secured an MBA in management information systems at Indiana University in August 1986—well, we’ll let part of our interview tell the next part of his story.
BoxScore: It seems that you did what a lot of family business owners do nowadays. They’ll send their kids off to work for another company, and then they come back and bring their knowledge to the family business. Was that the plan when you went to work at Apple?
Hoodwin: You know, I have noticed that a lot with the family businesses in AICC. They’ll send their son or daughter off to another company in another industry, and the son or daughter will bring some of the best parts of that experience back to their own company. That would be a great thing to help kind of formalize for members of AICC. It would almost be like a precursor to the Emerging Leader program. I could see it as a job-matching program, where your kids would work for somebody else’s company, and another business owner’s kids would work for yours. Anyway, I have seen that happen informally. But in my situation, Apple was a company I had always wanted to work at growing up. And so I actually used that argument, saying, “Hey, Dad, this would be a great experience for me to work at another company for a while, so I don’t grow up as a spoiled kid who runs his father’s company. I told him I’d stay at Apple for a year. I wound up being there nine years, and then my father was, like, ‘Enough is enough. It’s time for you to come back home.’ ”
BoxScore: So, you didn’t come back because you were dying to work in the family business? You returned because your father wanted you to?
Hoodwin: It was definitely the main reason in the beginning. I went back and forth in how I felt in those early years of running the company. It was always expected that I was going to go into the business. Honestly, I sometimes called the family business “the family curse.” My grandfather was killed in the prime of his life, and my grandmother had to take over the company, and in her time, it was very challenging for a woman to be taken seriously in business. So, my father and uncle really had no choice but to go into the business.
Hoodwin converses with Michigan City Paper Box team members on the plant floor.
Hindsight is 20/20, but my dad would have been just as successful doing anything else. He had an opportunity to go into the linen business, for instance, and didn’t, but I know he would have done well if he had. My uncle was really not happy at the business. I think he was miserable being plant manager. It just wasn’t what he wanted to do, but back in those days, he had no choice. I think families are doing a better job these days with not making their kids feel like they have to come into the business.
I’ve discussed this with other company chairmen, and I’ve asked, ‘Is so-and-so coming into the business,’ and they’ve said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to let them yet.’ It isn’t assumed and as automatic as it used to be, and I think that’s how it should be. I’m glad to see more families giving their children more independence in those decisions. I would have been very happy staying at Apple and very happy staying in the high-tech industry.
“I think companies are doing a better job these days with not making their kids feel like that have to come into the business.”
That said, I am really glad I came back when I did. I’m glad I got to spend 11 to 12 years of my dad’s life working with him. My dad passed away when he was 89, but he was still a person who wanted to come to work every day. Even when he was slowing down, I at least got him into the office three times a week. And nothing can ever replace those memories.
Invaluable Experience
When Hoodwin was working at Apple Computer in Cupertino, Calif., however, he was racking up valuable experience that he would bring to the family business. Hoodwin was the senior manager of the executive briefings and sales incentive programs for Apple Pacific. He managed the executive briefing center to close large corporate sales for Fortune 500 customers based in Canada, Latin America, Australia, Japan, and the Far East. He also ran the international portions of worldwide sales meetings and product introductions.
After Hoodwin bought the business from his father on June 30, 1993—not surprisingly, having had an up-close view of the 21st century—he immediately began converting their paper ordering and accounting process to a computer-based system. But his changes weren’t just about computers. In 1994, Hoodwin led negotiations with the United Steelworkers union to make critical changes to the labor contract, including the addition of productivity expectations.
There were also machinery updates in the plant. “If you had come into our plant, you’d find the latest automated machines—from the 1950s and ’60s,” Hoodwin quips.
“As a group, we can always accomplish more than we can as individuals.”
There was an acquisition in 2006 when the company bought Gem Box of the West in Los Angeles and moved its machinery to the Michigan City location to automate all lines with the latest fully automatic spotting equipment. And throughout it all, Hoodwin has been very involved with the industry as a whole.
In 2007, Hoodwin worked with Peter Freund, then-owner of one of the largest box manufacturers in the country, to merge the National Paperbox Association with the Canadian Paperboard Packaging Association to form the North American Packaging Association. From 2007 to 2009, Hoodwin was the Chair of the North American Packaging Association. In recent years, Hoodwin started becoming very involved and engaged with AICC. He joined the board of directors in 2011, and in 2015 he was named a vice Chair of AICC.
“I think when you have a volunteer organization like AICC, every member has a duty to give back to it as much they receive from it,” Hoodwin says.
In other words, he has received a lot.
BoxScore: So, what do you hope to do as the 2017–2018 AICC Chair?
Hoodwin: My theme for this year is strength in numbers, and it kind of plays off two different things. One, it’s based on my experiences that I’ve had at previous associations, but it’s the idea that we can always accomplish more and obtain better results when members with similar challenges and goals enact solutions for the industry. Back in my old association group, for instance, a group of rigid box members formed a task group to address various in the industry, and that was very successful.
BoxScore: What did the task force do?
Hoodwin: At the time of the Rigid Box Task Force, I was vice Chair of the North American Paperbox Association (NAPA). Peter Freund was the Chair at that time. The committee consisted of business owners and production managers of rigid box operations at various member plants. We got together as a group and defined what common we had amongst ourselves that we could possibly address as a group. The divided between supplier and machinery . For the supplierwe determined what common suppliers we were having with, and then met with them as a group at their facility to work out and address our . This successfully addressed many we were all having and has led to better relationships with these suppliers since the visits took place.
Then we looked as a group at the fast-paced changes that were occurring with the development of our box-wrapping lines from leading machine suppliers like Emmeci. Some of the members of the group had already installed this brand-new machinery in their plant, and they shared with us for what applications they worked well and what challenges they faced installing this machinery. Most of the current machines in our plants were over 40 years old, so it was a major change for many of us to accommodate the new machinery and learn what changes were needed in the preparation of materials, as well as training our old employees to use the new machinery. I think this group effort allowed many of us to successfully install and transition to this major change in our industry. We helped each other set standards for the new machinery and volunteered to help train each other’s employees to better run this new machinery. Most of those that participated in that task force are the companies that are still around today and I feel have been more successful because of their participation on this task force. … As a group, we can always accomplish more than we can as individuals.
BoxScore: Do you find people agree with that? A lot of business owners—in any industry—fear working with others because they’re afraid they’ll end up giving up market share, or that it’ll end up blowing up in their faces.
Hoodwin: Today, our challenge as an association—and this has often been the challenge—is engagement. How do we get more members engaged, and how do we attract those companies that feel they’re better off working on an island and not working with others? Somehow, many of them are afraid they’re going to give away trade secrets. And that’s so not the case. You give away information, but you also get information, and so much more. I have example after example where people have given me a new idea that’s saved my company hundreds of thousands of dollars. I know it’s hard to get out of the office to go to events and meetings, but it’s well worth the trip.
Geoff Williams is a journalist and writer based in Loveland, Ohio.
