Growth is Key to Success for Harbor Plastics, Northern California Small Business of the Year.

Business Editors

RICHMOND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 24, 2000

A Richmond plastics manufacturer that has grown dramatically in the past 30 years and earned a reputation as an outstanding employer and corporate citizen is the Northern California Small Business of the Year.

In 1975, Jonathon Lawlis, newly arrived in the Bay Area from Ohio, took a job for $2.50 an hour on the swing shift at Harbor Plastics, operating the firm's only plastics injection-molding machine. Harbor's other two employees worked the day shift. One of them, Wes Seapy, had founded the company in 1970 as the Plastic Paint Paddle Company, manufacturing and selling a single product that wouldn't be able to compete with a stick of wood in today's marketplace.

Jon Lawlis gradually learned the plastics business and took on more and more responsibility. When Seapy decided to sell his stake and retire in 1993, Lawlis stepped in and acquired full ownership. Today, Harbor Plastics employs 80 people in Richmond and manufactures a variety of custom parts for more than 40 client companies throughout North America. "I still make about $2.50 an hour," he quips.

This week, as part of the nationwide celebration of Small Business Week, Jon Lawlis and Harbor Plastics will be honored by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) as the Northern California Small Business of the Year. The company will receive its award at a luncheon Thursday, May 25 at the Hotel MAC in Point Richmond, sponsored by Bank of America and the Bay Area Development Company.

The relationship between Harbor Plastics and the SBA goes back to 1988, when the company received its first SBA-guaranteed loan to acquire the property it occupies today. The Bank of America Mira Vista Banking Center was right across the street, so the firm established a banking relationship there at the same time. "We have a great relationship," Lawlis says. Mary Combs, a personal banker at Mira Vista, agrees. "Mr. Lawlis trusts us to do all sorts of things," she says. "All he has to do is tell us what he needs and we take care of it for him."

As Harbor Plastics grew, Bank of America, the SBA and the Bay Area Development Company, which specializes in SBA real estate loans, teamed up to provide the necessary expansion capital. In 1998, the firm received its third financing package, to acquire a neighboring property and construct another addition to its plant. The expansion will enable Harbor to produce more products and hire about 35 new workers.

"Like so many companies that are trying to grow in the Bay Area, Harbor Plastics faces the difficulty of finding the right real estate," says Karyn King, a business development officer in Bank of America's Community Development Banking Group. "Jon has been very creative about finding ways to use adjacent properties as they have become available and we have been able to provide the necessary financing through a combination of SBA and conventional loans. As a result, Harbor Plastics has been able to expand while staying in place, which has been a real plus for both customers and employees."

Last year, the company that started by manufacturing a paint stirrer produced about 25 million plastics pieces and shipped them all over the world, earning nearly $7 million in revenue.

It's not a high profile business. "Most of the product we make goes into something else, so people who use our customers' products don't always see what we do," Lawlis says. He's talking about jets in tubs and spas, lens hoods for lighted highway signs and a component for a flare used by military aircraft. Other things are more visible, like flexible toothpicks, plastic bed legs, or educational products used in elementary school science departments. "Our customer's legs are holding up a lot of beds at many hotel and motels around the world." Lawlis notes, adding that on a recent vacation at a resort hotel in Hawaii, "I was glad to see our legs were holding up the beds there, too."

And if you drive up Interstate 80 from Richmond to Hercules, Lawlis points out, "Every new tree you see planted there is being held up by one of our tree staking systems."

According to Jim Baird, CEO of the Bay Area Development Company and the person who nominated Harbor Plastics for the SBA award, what's exciting about Jon Lawlis's firm is not the products it produces, but the business itself, how it's managed and how it treats its employees. "Jon has been able to expand his business because he runs it very well," Baird says. "He produces quality products, puts a high emphasis on customer service, uses technology effectively and maintains a diverse workforce with lots of long-time employees who know their jobs well and are very good at what they do."

Lawlis attributes his success with employees to the empathy he feels for workers, having started at the bottom himself. "One thing that really impresses me is the community that Harbor has become," he says. "Our employees represent all walks of life. We're like our own little town. Every birthday is remembered, as well as events that impact our employees' lives, good or bad. Whenever a new child is born, we start them off with a $100 savings bond to welcome them."

Lawlis applies a similar philosophy to community involvement. His company has supported the Bay Area Rescue Mission, East Bay YMCA, Richmond Art Center and numerous educational projects such as Senior High School Scholarships. He has personally participated in Christmas in April, helped disadvantaged children buy new clothes to wear on their first day of school and sponsored a kindergarten class in Richmond to help kids get a better start in their school careers. And he has served on the Boards of the East Bay YMCA, West Contra Costa County Youth Soccer League and the Richmond Rotary Club.

"The city of Richmond and west Contra Costa County have been very good to Harbor Plastics through the years and I really believe we should give something back to our communities," he says. "I try to focus on things that help children, because that's where you can really make a difference. Plus, they're going to take care of us in our old age."

Speaking again about his employees, Lawlis is quick to note that underlying the informal components of a nurturing work environment is a foundation of competitive pay and benefits, as well as extraordinary opportunities for career growth. He refers to the installation of a computerized business system in 1996 as "probably the most instrumental tool we have employed to keep us competitive in today's marketplace," and points out that the investment in technology and training has enabled the company to develop a more highly skilled workforce. "I'm proud of the many long-time employees who have been successfully trained to work on our computer-controlled machinery and equipment," he says. "Most of them had never touched a computer before in their lives."

The man who taught himself the plastics business in the 1970s and stayed up nights in the early 1990s learning how to run the computers that would save his company from more technologically savvy competitors says he plans to celebrate Harbor Plastics' 30th anniversary this year by "implementing a real time process monitoring system, improved material handling methods and continued emphasis on training."

To invoke a metaphor sometimes used to distinguish styles of management, Jon Lawlis is a "clockmaker" rather than a "timekeeper." Instead of telling people what time it is, he shows them how to make clocks. "My goal is to build Harbor Plastics into what a good company ought to be, a company that would be able to keep going if something happened to me," he says. "In business you can't stay in one place. You have to decide whether you want to grow or shrink. If you decide to shrink, you'll eventually shrink to nothing. But if you decide to grow, the opportunities are limitless."