Print Solutions Magazine, February 2005 -- Cover Story: Devestation, Recovery and Moving Ahead, Page 2

ACS continued to pay staff on a full-time basis at a weekly payroll cost of approximately $75,000, rotating most workers on 12-hour shifts. Meanwhile, Enduro had another production facility in Cincinnati that took over some work. Gildehaus and others volunteered to drive a van of production staff to Cincinnati and back weekly.

Within three weeks, the Washington plant was empty and decontaminated with anti-bacterial agents. Limited production in the building began soon after, with some equipment sputtering for a few hours then stopping. The company gradually began to replace some of its lost equipment.

ACS decided to reinvest in the company and finance a new location for the firm. Says Gildehaus: “After the site was chosen, I remember walking on it with my fiancée, now my wife, saying, ‘It’s going to be OK. This is where the company’s future is going to be.’”

New Level of Speed, Same Level of Service

The May 13-14 edition of the Washington Missourian newspaper includes a front-page photo of the wreckage inside the plant. In the photo, Maune is giving Missouri Congressman Kenny Hulshof a tour of the plant’s interior. Overturned binders and mud abound. Maune is wearing boots in the picture, and Hulshof is looking toward the photographer in disbelief.

It’s now September 2004, and Maune is wearing business shoes. He’s reclining in his office desk at the company’s 80,000-square-foot facility in the new Elmer C. Heidmann Industrial Park, a few miles away from the companies’ previous location. (The new building is on a hill). Thanks to closings of several binder competitors, Maune says Enduro’s sales are better than they were prior to the flood. Meanwhile, Trends has grown its sales 20 percent annually since reopening when the new building was ready in August 2001. Enduro’s sales account for approximately two-thirds of the firms’ combined business. Together, the companies handle more than 22,000 orders a year, most of which are custom. “The fact that we’re still succeeding is a testament to everyone who worked hard during the tragedy and since,” Maune says.

Maune and most of the company’s 120 employees were born in or around Washington, a town that’s polite and pious, and where Mark Twain would feel at home. It’s hard to walk down a street and not encounter a smile or a church spire. Thanks to a manufacturing venture begun in 1869, Washington is known as the “Corncob Pipe Capital of the World.” To understand the culture at Enduro and Trends, Maune says, you have to know the pervasive attitudes of Washington’s citizens. “The community and the company go hand in hand,” he says. “This is a place that appreciates and expects civic responsibility and hard work,” he says. “Business leaders are expected to give back to the community whenever they can.”

After the flash flood, Lamb says, 83 percent of the firms’ employees contributed to a United Way campaign to help affected families and businesses. The companies raised more than $7,000. Many employees also volunteered with the American Red Cross at disaster locations when away from their own cleanup duties. Maune says that kind of spirit is the “main reason” Enduro and Trends gain customers today.

Other reasons are practical and market-driven. One benefit of the flash flood was the companies’ opportunity to invest in corporate-wide technology simultaneously. “We had the luxury of replacing every computer at once, including new software and processes,” Gildehaus says. “After moving to our new place, we suddenly had state-of-the-art equipment that was integrated and slick.” Also, he says, there’s a growing market for short run, digitally printed binders needed quickly. “Trends is well-positioned for the future, even though technology and multimedia have eliminated some of the need for paper records stored in binders,” he says. Gildehaus says the company’s advantage is speed, both in the production of digital products and the internal processes required to quote and produce them. For example, employees time-stamp their quote forms, aiming to provide custom quotes in 24 hours or less. “Some resellers are frustrated with their binder suppliers, and we’re gaining market share because people are turning to us after their suppliers fail or go out of business,” Gildehaus says.

With a new Xeikon press, Trends is marketing its full-color, very short run line of binders and packaging as Fast Impressions™. Standard turnaround of a free press proof is three working days from receipt of a purchase order and usable artwork. “As a manufacturer, if you’re going to lament the fact that customers want things in a rush, that’s not productive,” Gildehaus says. “We look at rush requests as opportunities instead of problems.”

Michael Zizza, president of Graphic Sales Products, Beverly, Mass., says most of his binder and packaging customers demand unique, fast products. “They’re not looking for the same old ring binder, box or package that everyone else is looking for. Each project is a challenge,” he says. A medical devices firm recently asked Graphic Sales Products to provide a small-quantity, large presentation kit containing a binder, CD and VHS tape. Trends produced the package, which the end user’s sales representatives showed to doctors. “It turned out wonderfully, and Trends turned it around quickly,” Zizza says. “They do what they say they’re going to do, and I count on that dependability.”

Lamb says the flash flood galvanized Enduro and Trends. Employees from different departments earned each other’s respect while they worked together during the cleanup. Maune agrees, adding that Enduro’s traditional business balances Trends’ aggressive one. “We’re gaining momentum every day,” he says. “We still have to keep in mind that customers come first. Once we get customers to try us, we rarely lose them. If the flood taught us anything, it’s that we always need to watch out for what comes next. We don’t plan to let a good thing evaporate.”

Darin Painter is managing editor of Print Solutions. Email him your comments at dpainter@PSDA.org.

More information on disaster recovery is available in the Solution Center at www.PSDA.org.