November 29, 2016
Not everyone would work for their father-in-law, but Tony Schleich knew a good man and a good opportunity when he saw it.
It was a “fateful summer day in 2001,” as Schleich describes it, when the then-31-year-old insurance underwriter was at a family gathering at Table Rock Lake, a reservoir in southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas. Schleich’s father-in-law, Dave Claxton, gathered the family around, which included Claxton’s twin daughters, another daughter, and a son. As Schleich recalls it, Claxton, then 55, knew that he should be thinking about the future and said to everyone:
“Look, I’ve got to start positioning this company to transition it to someone in the family who may be interested in someday running it, or I need to eventually sell it or merge.”
Claxton had purchased a box company in South Hutchinson, Kan., in 1987 and renamed it the American Packaging Corporation. He had known nothing about the corrugated industry when he bought the box company but wanted to own a business, and ever since, Claxton had done well. But as the 21st century started, Claxton started thinking about the company’s long-term future and how to get it to the 22nd.
Schleich liked the idea of being his own boss and of growing a company, and as it turned out, he was the only one in the family who stepped forward.
“They all thought I was crazy,” Schleich says of his wife and his siblings-in-law, “because I didn’t know who I was going to be working with.”
But Schleich and his father-in-law got along just fine. In fact, 15 years later, here Schleich is, not only the president of American Packaging Corporation, but also the new Chair of AICC.
BoxScore: You have been active with AICC for a while now. You were vice Chair last year, and before that, you were the AICC education Chair. How long have you been active with AICC?
Tony Schleich with staff members Pat Whalen and Carolyn Sams.
Schleich: [Long pause. Laughs.] I don’t know. I don’t remember when I first got involved.
BoxScore: Well, somewhere after the summer of 2001 and between now …
Schleich: Yes. It’s been a while. I have also been lucky to serve on the Board for quite some time. The thing is, it’s so doggone rewarding to serve with these people. Sure, it takes some time being involved on the board level, but the benefits far outweigh the time we spend.
BoxScore: Is that something you hope to see as Chair—more people involved in AICC?
Schleich: Oh, sure. For those who aren’t members or are unengaged, you really do have to give it a chance. I’ll speak for myself, of course, but the relationships that I have developed, you can’t put a price tag on that. I know if I have a problem with the business that I don’t have the answer to, I can call no less than 20 people who would be willing to take that phone call and help me find the answer. That’s our challenge—to promote that relationship-building to members and to get people to be more engaged, but boy, when it works, it works. And associate members are invaluable in this equation as well. You can call an associate member, for crying out loud, and the suppliers will be more than willing to help you out, and I think that’s unique. They’re selling equipment, of course, but they want to see you succeed. And if you succeed, they have a better chance of selling something to you. So I would flat-out encourage anyone who isn’t engaged with AICC to engage themselves more with those who attend those meetings, whether it’s on the regional or national level.
The thing is, it’s so doggone rewarding to serve with these people. Sure, it takes some time being involved on the board level, but the benefits far outweigh the time we spend.
In the years before Schleich became involved with AICC, he was at first simply trying to understand the corrugated industry. A couple of months after the discussion at the lake, Schleich started working for his father-in-law and began learning the ropes—well, more specifically, he began learning about containerboard and fan fold box machines and automated box gluing machines. In fact, Schleich’s first job was on the shop floor, catching boxes off of a semi-auto taper and gluer.
It was a surreal, even spooky time, Schleich recalls. When he took the job offer and left insurance, his wife, Kim, was pregnant with their second daughter. (The girls are now 14 and 17 respectively. “God help me,” Schleich jokes.) But as summer came to a close, the entire country was shaken to the core—we don’t even need to mention the date or reason why—and a month later, Tony and Kim moved from St. Louis to Hutchinson, Kan., in October 2001.
As the years went on, Schleich rose up the ranks at the company. Meanwhile, Claxton began reducing his role at the company and now generally offers up his opinion as a member of the advisory board. In 2012, American Packaging Corporation merged with the Lawrence Paper Company, in Lawrence, Kan., and that, too, was a big deal for the business. Suddenly, there wasn’t only one location for American Packaging Corporation but three, since Lawrence had expanded earlier and bought Jayhawk Boxes, based out of Fremont, Neb.
BoxScore: So … we’ve got to ask. Not just anyone would agree to go into business with their father-in-law.
Schleich: I could not have been more blessed to have had that relationship with him. Sure, it wasn’t all rose petals and pink ice cream. We would sometimes go toe-to-toe on some as I would try to learn and chart my own way. But it was very smart of him to handle it the way he did. Let’s face it—this is an aging industry, and not everybody has succession plans. Dave Claxton was smart enough to think about succession early. He also had the fortitude to allow his management team some rope so we could try things on our own, and he would be there if it looked as if we were going to fall off a cliff. But he didn’t micromanage us. He allowed us the freedom to work on the business on our own, and I give Dave 100 percent of the credit for that. He’ll never accept that credit, but I have the advantage when I talk to folks like you or when I’m standing behind a lectern and giving a talk, and I can give him credit. He had this willingness to allow us the freedom to fail—well, to fail forward, how about that? We did some things wrong. I gotta be honest with you that we did do things wrong, but we learned a lot, and when the recession hit, if we hadn’t already been given the freedom to experiment and to fail occasionally before that period, I’m not sure we would have gotten through that.
BoxScore: So, the recession is in the rearview mirror, but the economy and business in general can still be rocky for some. What are the pressing that you see facing the corrugated industry right now?
Schleich: The burning topics that are out there that nobody likes talking about—well, the shrinking industry insofar as the number of players that we have. There’s a lot of M&A [merger and acquisition] activity. Some are by choice, like mine, and some aren’t. But in how it relates to AICC, we need to remember the “independent” part of our name, and that it isn’t us versus them. It’s how do we continue to play nice in the sandbox? … And we have otherlike how we as an industry continue to do what we do to serve those who need us in this great country … and how do we stay relevant and how do we stay at the forefront in our customers’ eyes and grow our business when there are fewer and fewer of us?
My business ain’t about me—it’s about my employees, and when you start to make it about your employees, things become a lot clearer.
BoxScore: That’s a lot on one plate. Is there any particular issue that you think you’ll touch on the most in the next year?
Schleich: I am a huge proponent of the concept of principled leadership. It seems elementary, but executing principled leadership can prove to be challenging, especially if you’re just starting to run a business. And it took me a while, but I think I have it figured out now. My business ain’t about me—it’s about my employees, and when you start to make it about your employees, things become a lot clearer. And it starts to give you, during that drive to work and the time you spend in the office, a little more purpose. You become much more motivated when you don’t only look at revenue and profitability. And certainly those two things are of great importance, but if you take care of the people, that stuff will happen.
Geoff Williams is a freelance journalist and writer based in Loveland, Ohio.
