McNair steers MVP on discipline

Middlefield, Ohio — Darrell McNair believes in discipline.

He drives an electric car, but he won't install a charging station at MVP Plastics Inc. because he believes in planning how far he has to drive.

He's told his son and daughter who are in their 20s that they must work at least five years elsewhere after college before he'll consider bringing them onboard at MVP.

He once wrestled a match at 134 pounds at Kent State University during his freshman year despite a growth spurt that would have him regularly competing at 150 pounds. (It was a bad idea.)

“Clearly, wrestling was key to defining who I am today in terms of the discipline one must have, the commitment one must have, time, the dedication and the challenges,” said McNair, 53, president, CEO and sole owner of MVP. “A lot of times when you're in business, particularly as the CEO, you feel like you're out there by yourself sometimes. When you're out there wrestling, unlike team sports, it's you and the other fella out there on the mat going head to head. So clearly it was a learning or development experience.”

That penchant for discipline is evident upon a visit to MVP, a Tier 2 automotive supplier in Middlefield, 40 miles west of Cleveland. McNair bought Nescor Plastics Corp. in 2000, but rebranded it as MVP in 2009 and bought out his partner around the same time.

MVP opened a 30,000-square-foot facility in Brownsville, Texas, in August to be closer to its customers in northern Mexico. In addition, McNair predicts MVP will launch a facility within Mexico in the next two years to serve its automotive customers, which make up 80 percent of the business of this injection molder.

The dry erase board in McNair's office is full of hand-written charts that list the months and the days of the week spelled in Spanish.

“I'm learning every day,” he says when asked his Spanish-speaking skills. “I've got two books at home that sit next to my nightstand. And on my cell phone there's this app called Duolingo that quizzes you everyday. I like it.”

MVP isn't standing pat in North America. McNair says the company will open a joint venture in Dongguan, China, later this year. The company will partner with Windsor, Ontario-based Standard Tool & Mold Inc. with an existing building that has presses on the ground but is mostly used as a tool shop.

“We're working out a cooperative arrangement where they are going to co-locate with me down at our Texas facility so they can service their Southern customers and I'm going to more or less co-locate with them to service some of our automotive customers in China,” McNair said.

McNair describes himself as a fair, but honest leader who tries to empower his team to think and make decisions. “I don't like to micromanage.”

What he does like to do is mentor young people. He feels a particular responsibility to look out for African-Americans, especially since the plastics industry has a scarcity of minorities in ownership and leadership roles. To that end, he has hired interns and mentors students from Cleveland State University, the University of Akron, Central State University, Shawnee State University and Penn State University-Erie.

He knows MVP is reliant on the auto sector and one day dreams of operating a clean room in a separate facility to really engage in the medical sector. But, today, his approach is different.

“I literally work on that every day — what does the next downturn look like? That's why geographic diversification is important for me. That's one of my strategies for beating the next downturn,” said McNair, who will invest $50,000 into LED lighting fixtures inside and outside of the Ohio plant that will pay back the investment within 18 months.

What keeps McNair up at night?

“It's funny because I was just talking to our employees about this this morning — my midnight shift. How can I pay them more? It keeps me up at night. Because that has a lot to do with our operational effectiveness and efficiency.

“Being a Tier 2 supplier, we're in a box. We can only charge so much. We don't go direct to consumer. A lot of our folks are unskilled labor. It's tough for them to make a living out there. And they bounce for a quarter. They bounce for 50 cents. They bounce for a dollar. So how can I minimize that bounce from going across the street or around the corner? It's more than pay. My employees confirm that. They say, ‘We know that we can go make more someplace else. But we also know we have a culture where we're safe here, the environment is good and you do treat us fairly. But we still have to pay the bills.' That's my hardest equation.”