by Ed Barna Back in 1993, state legislators approved the ‘Mack Molding Bill,’ which created incentives to help keep the company expanding in Vermont rather than crossing the line and accepting offers from New York State.
Eight years later, Mack still matters, especially to Bennington County, where it maintains a major plant in Arlington. As a contract manufacturer, the company does much more than manufacturing’design, engineering, prototyping and testing are among their services’a versatility that has helped establish them as a presence in the industrial, transportation, computer, business equipment, medical, consumer and energy/environmental markets.
The company’s history goes back to Donald S Kendall’s work as a chemist for the Thomas Edison Companies in New Jersey. Early in the 20th century, that group was trying to find a better phonograph recording material than wax, which gave Kendall achance to experiment with thermoset resins. In 1920 he and Kenneth Macksey co-founded the Mack Molding Company, which began operations with three rebuilt injection presses.
They made bottle caps, then war materials in World War II, then took on automotive work when peacetime came. In 1960, the Kendall family bought out their partners and began diversifying into consumer products.
In 1974, Donald S Kendall, the founder’s grandson, took the helm. He’s still the CEO, and still advancing the company’s fortunes. (Legally, Mack Molding is a wholly owned subsidiary of the privately held Mack Group, under whose umbrella Mack Technologies and Mack Prototype also operate.)
With sales of $261 million in 2011 Mack was ranked as the 12th largest Vermont-based company in Vermont Business Magazine's Vermont 100 (January 2012 issue). In fact Mack is a "25er," having been in the Vermont 100 ever since its inception in 1987. SEELIST.
Mack also has consistently been listed as one of the top 10 non-automotive injection molding companies in North America. Dun & Bradstreet have given then a 5A1 rating, their highest. Besides the original plant and headquarters in Arlington, Mack has set up plants in Cavendish and Pownal in Vermont, taking advantage of spaces in vacant pre-existing mills, bringing Vermont employment to about 500 jobs. Acquisitions brought them plants in Tatesville, North Carolina and Inman, South Carolina. Mack Technologies operates out of Westford, Massachusetts.
‘During the last decade, Mack’s Northern Operations has pursued a new business model geared at expanding its position as a contract manufacturer, both for the medical market and for what we call BBC (big, bulky, complex) products,’ said spokeswoman Julie Horst. ‘The underlying theme, of course, is to focus our energies on those markets and products that are less likely to pursue offshore manufacturing.’
‘As a medical manufacturer, Mack’s focus has been on high quality, highly configured, relatively low-volume products that are difficult to manage offshore and that are supported by a robust northeastern US customer base,’ Horst said. ‘Since 2000, we have grown medical manufacturing sales from one percent to 35 percent of total sales, and project growth to 40 percent of sales for FY’12.’
‘The BBC business model has driven us toward products that are too large to be manufactured efficiently overseas from an array of logistical perspectives, and too complex for quality and engineering challenges to be confidently and expediently managed from offshore locations,’ Horst said. ‘This market sector now also approaches 40 percent of total sales.’
Mack was the third manufacturer in Vermont to be certified by the state as an Environmental Leader. ‘Mack not only helps other companies develop environmentally friendly products, but follows environmentally sustainable practices itself,’ a company statement said.
Ed Barna is a freelance writer from Middlebury.