Honoring thermoforming's past and focusing on its future

Beaverton, Mich. — When Fred Robinson left Dow Chemical Co. to start his own plastics business in 1947, packaged beads of artificial snow proved a popular product until a truly cool business prospect came along.

General Electric Co. wanted to improve upon its refrigerator as the appliance headed for mass production following World War II. Robinson Industries Inc. was asked to create a door liner that would not only keep food cold but could be easily cleaned.

Fred Robinson, an early innovator who had been experimenting with a building product called Styrofoam — invented while he was at Dow — called upon some talented neighbors for help on the GE request. Even though Beaverton only had about 800 residents at the time, Robinson was in good company when it came to plastics pioneers.

There was the mechanically minded Gaylord Brown, who would become the founder of Brown Machine LLC; materials master Miles Kalahar, also a former Dow employee, who would go on to start Kal Plastics in 1955; and production visionary Bill Oberloier, whose first two businesses became Lyle Industries and Beaverton Plastics, which later was sold to Spartech Corp.

The collaborative effort of those four men on the challenge from GE solved a problem for one of the world's largest companies, and it illustrates one of the many ways a small town in rural central Michigan distinguished itself as the thermoforming capital of the world.

Seventy years and generations of polymer professionals later, Beaverton now has 1,100 residents and remains home to Brown Machines, Lyle Industries and Robinson Industries, which is the No. 51 thermoformer with estimated thermoforming sales of $25 million, according to Plastics News' new ranking. Modern Machinery, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastic, Advanced Engineering Co., and East Jordan Plastic Inc., are some of the other polymer businesses located in the town.

A passionate group of community leaders also calls Beaverton home. They are celebrating their plastics heritage with the opening of a museum of sorts called the Catalyst Boardroom in the new $1.3 million Beaverton Activity Center. Funded by donations, the center is another point of pride. It fills a former school built in 1935. There's one business tenant, Mid-Michigan Community Health Services, and a slew of programs for young and old, such as a preschool, library with computer stations and a coffee shop, exercise classes and meeting rooms that can be used for free for everything from Boy Scouts to birthday parties.

In addition to giving a nod to its rich past, the Catalyst Boardroom is a place where local leaders are trying to solidify the industry's future. Educational programs for children are in development with Beaverton Rural Schools and Mid Michigan Community College, where students can earn an associate's degree in plastics engineering technology.

Thermoforming kept Beaverton on the map — even as plastics business moved overseas and across the border to Mexico — and its industrious residents and business owners aim to keep it the unofficial thermoforming capital.

Catalysts of change

Back in the 1940s, Fred Robinson had a workshop in town where he went to sort through the plastics challenges of the time. One day he asked Brown, Kalahar and Oberloier to join him and offer ideas on GE's needs. His son, Bernard “Bin” Robinson and another young man, Al Cambridge, were there as well to physically help with the plastic sheets and film that would be used to refine the modern refrigerator.

Bin Robinson and Cambridge, now in their 70s and 80s, respectively, have recounted what transpired that day on a videotape about the area's plastic roots. Julie French, the wife of Steven French, who is a grandchild of Miles Kalahar and a resin broker, has heard their story.

“They had already formed the refrigerator door liner — the place where you put your milk — but what they hadn't done, what they needed to solve, was how to get the film on it so you could wipe it,” French said.

The men settled on using high-impact polystyrene for the door liner and pure styrene for a laminate, according to Ronda Robinson, granddaughter of Fred Robinson and the marketing director of the woman-owned Robinson Industries.

Working into the night, the four men took an idea from a drawing to design to production. They manufactured one of the refrigerator door liners and Fred Robinson left immediately with Cambridge to hand deliver it.

“They took off at 9 o'clock at night from Beaverton, Mich., in the early 1950s — with no freeways back then — and they drove to Erie, Penn., to show this piece to the president of General Electric. Al describes in the video how they walked in and he was ready for them,” French said. “He received them, saw it and very soon after they left they had letters from GE.”

One of the letters arranged for a partnership with Dow to provide the materials to produce the refrigerator door liners. Robinson Industries filled the GE orders using equipment made by Brown Machines.

An exhibit about the life cycle of that appliance part — from concept to tooling to disposal and recycling — will go up next in the Catalyst Boardroom. Although it is just one room on the second floor of the activity center, it is big enough for five displays, including four that will rotate on plastics careers, what plastics make possible, and “the local industry with a worldwide impact” in addition to product life cycles.

“We wanted to find something that they all did together for the first life cycle,” French said.

Paths keep crossing

As their careers took off, there were other times some or all of the four early plastics experts of Beaverton traded parts and advice. In one of their first collaborations, Robinson came up with the design for a machine to make large components from thermoformed plastics. He asked Brown and Oberloier to build it. The result was a production thermoforming machine that allowed plastic parts to be formed faster than metal could be stamped.

With that breakthrough, Brown Machines gained a reputation for innovation. Kalahar became a customer and Kal Plastics started performing demonstrations for prospective buyers and acting as a sales agent for Brown's thermoforming machines.

Miles Kalahar and Gaylord Brown collaborated to create a continual thermoforming line to produce divided snack food trays. Friends and family recall the trays coming with bags of corn chips in the early 1960s and essentially putting chips and dip at the top of every trendy hostess's shopping list.

“My mom remembered the trays taped to the bag. She said prior to that, for card parties, they would make finger sandwiches and after we served chips and dip.” French said, holding a stack of the colorful retro-style trays also made of HIPS.

The French family found a wooden mold for the prototype of the snack trays while looking through a barn. Tucked in a box postmarked Dec. 7, 1961, the mold from United Pattern in Saginaw will come in handy for an exhibit in the micro-museum one day.

Meanwhile, over at Oberloier Plate and Welding, which became Lyle Industries, Bill Oberloier was focused on finding ways to improve efficiency and simplify production. He developed the first counter balance trim press and the first NFL blocking sled to use urethane pad technology.

Building on tradition

Fast forward to the present, about 20 miles away from Beaverton, at Mid Michigan Community College in Harrison, where Steven Fosgard runs the plastics technology program, which is about to graduate its first class of students in May. He was hired in 2013 to design the program with seed money from a highly coveted $714,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

Fosgard worked in injection molding and quality assurance before getting into education. He turned to the plastics businesses in the area for input about the certificate and associate-degree programs to be offered and three businesses in particular about equipment.

“Even though we teach all of the major processes, our focus is thermoforming,” Fosgard said. “We have a very unique machine. It is the only one in existence and the only one that will ever be in existence. It was built by all three machine manufacturers of Beaverton for our students. It was a collaboration of Modern Machinery, Brown Machine and Lyle Industries.”

The trio of companies built a 30 X 36 single station shuttle thermoformer dubbed the MMCC 3036SSP.

“We wanted to provide the students with a key asset to work on the cutting edge of advancements in materials, tooling, process and product quality,” said Brown spokesman Brian Winton, noting features like high-resolution servo controls for precision platen position, sheet car movement and servo third motion plug assist. “This vacuum shuttle machine also has pressure assist features, allowing the plastic lab curriculum to run prototype parts and small production quantities. Students are able to process both heavy and thin gauge products for a range of products used in the market place today.”

Classes started in fall 2014 and this spring about 15 students will have the option to get a job in the industry or transfer to four-year programs for plastics, engineering and management at several state universities.

This summer, some MMCC students also will take the lessons they learned and introduce the industry to children signed up for science camps with plastic-related themes at the Beaverton Activity Center.

“So our students will give back to the community,” Fosgard said. “Before I even brought it up, a freshmen student first semester asked: How can we get other people involved in this? What can we do? It shows the measure of the student and the people we have in our area.”

Cause for optimism

Ronda Robinson said as exciting as it is to have her grandparents honored as catalysts of the thermoforming industry, it is equally important to her that the next generation be inspired at the activity center and trained at the college.

Robinson Industries has about 200 employees but some skilled positions are hard for the small-town employer to keep filled.

“We're just starving for engineers and CAD,” Robinson said. “We thought the educational component would be good to keep the pipeline going. We're very dedicated to the community. A few years ago, when everyone was moving to Mexico, we sat in a meeting of our board, which is all family, and we talked about it. We said if we pull out, the industries that feed off of us will collapse. Yes, we could make more money but that's not what we're going to do. We're here to support this community.”

Robinson Industries serves mostly the automotive end market, but orders for consumer goods are on the rise and the business is quoting everything from ice fishing sleds to high-end port-a-johns.

Fosgard said the thermoforming players in the area are constantly inventing new equipment, materials and processes.

“That's one of the things I love about the industry,” he said. “Nobody stops innovating. It just never ends and my students see that. They also see the commitment from the companies. There isn't a semester — sometimes not a month — that goes by without one of the owners or someone who works there stopping in and engaging with the students.”

The students also are aware of all the businesses that have been spun off by protégés of the pioneers or landed in Beaverton because of the area's firm roots in plastic. There is a plastic silicone and coating company, engineering support, and other thermoformers.

Opportunities abound

Back at the Beaverton Activity Center, Scott Govitz, executive director of workforce and economic development at MMCC, sees all kinds of possibilities for exhibits for the Catalyst Boardroom — a name everyone agreed upon after researching plastics terms, including a children's definition that defines catalyst as a bit of magic that makes things happen.

“Integrating plastics into this facility was important,” Govitz said. “It's so woven into our community. I personally benefitted from working seven years at Kal Plastics. It's part of our fabric and we knew we needed to capture that history and celebrate it but also look to our future.”

Standing in front of a wall listing the core values of the four plastics business owners — imagination, passion, persistence, curiosity, confidence, optimism, collaboration, adaptability and resourcefulness —French said their catalyst was hard work.

“We can all have the same persistence or confidence or optimism but the one who works harder is a success,” she added. “I challenge someone reading this story to think about how it can be a catalyst for their community or their part of the industry. Tell your story to the consumer, the student, the transitional employee. A lot of people don't think it is remarkable story because they do it every day but it is especially remarkable at a time in history when people think they aren't any good jobs and education is screwed up and there are no new opportunities. This story could start and stop in Beaverton, Mich., or it can be about the companies and innovators all over this country who believe in plastics.”