The immaculate reception of Park Sausage.

Thanks to former NFL star Franco Harris, there will be more Parks sausages. But returning the Baltimore-based B.E. 100s company to glory will be his toughest challenge yet.

FRANCO HARRIS HAS A FLAIR FOR THE dramatic. The former Pittsburgh Steeler running back--best known for "The Immaculate Reception," his improbable 60-yard ricochet reception and run for the winning touchdown in the final five seconds of the 1972 AFC playoff game against the Oakland Raiders--now is making a bold move on corporate America, one that could make his football heroics look like child's play. Harris is leading a group of investors purchasing Parks Sausage Co., a once-thriving black business institution that had fallen into bankruptcy and closed its doors.

While catching a football and scoring a touchdown in the clutch is no easy feat, carrying Parks Sausage to pay dirt will prove to be a far more difficult task. Obtaining Parks is not enough. Harris must restore Parks to its glory days when the "More Parks Sausages, Mom, Please!" slogan evoked the company's status as an industry leader. By taking on the challenge of resurrecting Parks, Harris is engaged in the equivalent of a "sudden-death" overtime: He must make an open-field run to profitability, through excessive debt, large competitors and dwindling market share, before the clock runs out.

CAN HE DO IT?

Just as his historic 1972 catch propelled the Steelers on to the first of four Super Bowl victories during the '70s, this deal may bring Harris similar glory in the corporate arena. For one thing, as CEO of one of the largest black-owned businesses in the nation, the purchase lifts him into the ranks of The BE 100s. Even with its financial woes, Parks managed $20 million in sales last year, ranking No. 93 on the BE INDUSTRIAL/SERVICE 100 list.

Secondly, it gives him an opportunity to expand his solid reputation as an institutional food service industry innovator. Harris, majority owner of the Pittsburgh-based Super Bakery Inc., has been lauded for running the $10 million doughnut manfacturer as a high-quality, low-cost, efficient 10-employee operation, known as a virtual corporation. This relatively small company achieved a national presence in niche markets that larger firms had given up on. Succeeding with Parks would give Harris two successful food industry companies, providing him with greater opportunities for other joint ventures or acquisitions.

NO MORE PARKS SAUSAGES?

In late May, Parks Sausage was all but dead. After filing for bankruptcy and sending most of its employees home, it was reduced to a dormant husk. There was no bustling of workers in the halls, and many rooms throughout the sprawling complex were dark. Production of the company's food products had come to a complete stop.

Harris's arrival triggered a rebirth. As he grew nearer to closing the deal, Harris got distribution back on line to some 350 Pathmark and Shoprite supermarkets in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. He expects production to be back to full capacity in a few weeks. He also brought former employees back into the fold. In mid-July, approximately half of Parks employees were back to work. The company expects to be back at full strength by the fall.

At press time, a final meeting with a bankruptcy judge to approve the deal was still pending, so Harris was reluctant to fully explain the financing of the Parks purchase. Essentially, the deal is structured as follows: Harris, the majority owner, and other equity investors, including former Baltimore Colts running back Lydell Mitchell, agreed to purchase Parks for $1.7 million in cash while assuming nearly $9 million in debt. After working out agreements with Parks' largest creditors, much of that debt will be forgiven. The city of Baltimore will get back only $500,000 of its original $2.4 million loan. North Carolina-based Nationsbank will be repaid $3 million of the $5 million it's owed. The Baltimore Development Corp. will be repaid its $400,000 emergency loan in full. Meanwhile creditors were willing to make concessions after hauling Parks into court to collect their debts.

"If the company went into bankruptcy and closed for good it's likely that the debt would have been wiped out," says Daniel P. Henson III, Baltimore's commissioner of Housing and Community Development. "Now, at least, we're able to get back some money, and we're not walking away empty-handed."

Baltimore also gets to keep more than 200 jobs in the city, a gamble that many people, including Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, think is worth it. In addition to Parks being a significant employer in Baltimore, there are other intangible reasons for making sure the company survives, notes Schmoke. "It's served as a symbol of where we've been in terms of minority business development, and there's a great deal of pride in the history of that company," the mayor notes. "What we're hoping now is that this deal will signal that Parks will be a leader in minority business development in the future." Indeed, making Parks a player in the industry once again could help strengthen confidence in black-owned businesses nationwide.

A HARD ROAD TO GLORY

Getting Parks to that leadership position won't be easy, but Harris says the company's problems were easy to spot. It failed to capitalize on its famous brand name and slogan because its marketing and advertising grew more and more limited over the last decade. During that time, it garnered a tremendous amount of debt and lost its chief vendors--Pizza Hut, Domino's and The International House of Pancakes--to lower-cost sausage makers. It was also one of several businesses that were forced to move from the Camden Yards industrial area in the late '80s to make way for Orioles Ball-park. And its new $16 million plant in Baltimore's Park Circle enterprise zone carried more overhead than the company was able to handle.

While recognizing these problems, Harris continued to pursue the deal, at least in part out of nostalgia. He remembers fondly Parks' popular commercials from his childhood, and feels strongly that he's not alone, insisting that people still remember warmly the old Mom-and-the sausage-kid slogan and, of course, the product itself. "Knowing that Parks hasn't advertised that slogan in years--but people still remember it--shows me that there's strength in that name," Harris muses. "Just think what could happen if someone really took this brand name and worked it. I don't think an opportunity like this comes everyday."

While analysts agree that the Parks name is a plus, a good brand name alone won't eliminate debt. While advertising the slogan may help, Harris has his work cut out for him in reversing the company's downward spiral. "The biggest challenge to their success is that they're a small player in an industry dominated by giants," says Kurt C. Funderberg, an analyst who watches the meat industry for the Baltimore-based Ferris, Baker Watts Inc. "If you're a small manufacturer then you don't have the cost advantages of a Hormel, or Smithfields Foods or Oscar Mayer when it comes to purchasing in bulk, buying packaging or even distribution."

Another advantage these companies have over Parks, Funderberg says, is advertising revenue. With shelf space tight, supermarkets are more willing to give space to products that are heavily promoted and more likely to sell quickly.

Harris must also convince large vendors, such as Pizza Hut and Domino's, to do business with Parks again. "Large chains like these generally want as few suppliers as they can get. So, they often go to the larger manufacturers that can supply their needs nationwide, rather than using four or five to service them [regionally]," Funderberg explains.

FROM SUPER BOWLS TO SUPER DONUTS 

Harris' biggest asset may be his experience leading another food product company, Super Bakery, to profitable niche markets. While Harris is most widely known for football, he didn't wait long before jumping into the business world after retiring from the Steelers in 1984. With a bachelors' degree from Penn State University in food service and administration, Harris started by selling frozen fruit products throughout the Midwest. In 1988, he was approached by the owners of Prestige American Foods about selling their doughnuts. Two years after signing on, he purchased 75% of the company and changed the name to Super Bakery. His best known product is the Super Doughnut, a vitamin fortified pastry capable of meeting the rigid nutritional standards of school lunch programs.

Super Bakery sells its products primarily to schools, hospitals, summer youth programs and airlines. The company employs only 10 workers, including Harris, since it outsources most major responsibilities--including selling, manufacturing and shipping--to independent brokers and contractors to increase efficiency and decrease costs. Many of the innovations that Harris has made at Super Bakery--such as creating sturdier packaging to reduce food damage during shipping, improving on-time performance on shipments and promotion of the product--could help him lower costs and get Parks out of the red. Harris says the company will focus on marketing and advertising some seven or eight of Parks' core products.

"Franco took a product with an unknown brand name and focused on key markets until he dominated a particular area. That's what he'll have to do with Parks," Funderberg says. "The deck is stacked against him, but if there's someone out there who can turn this around I think Franco has a good shot at doing it."

And Harris has some talented team members to help. Mitchell, one of his teammates at Penn State and also a Super Bakery partner, will serve as Parks president and oversee day-to-day operations. As national sales manager with Super Bakery for the past five years, Mitchell had to go out and identify new markets for the company to attack. That's a chief part of his strategy at Parks. "If this is going to work I have to get out and be very aggressive in sales and marketing. That's the only way to get this company back to the level where it once was," he says. "Our concept is `sell, sell, sell.' That's what we did with Super Bakery, and that's what we bring to the table now."

As he did with Super Bakery, Harris will probably explore moving Parks into school districts, hospitals and other areas where the company can get a foothold. Harris also plans on revisiting all of the company's prior customers, including Pizza Hut and Domino's, in an attempt to get that business back. "Wherever they sell sausage, that's where we want to be."

Mitchell says diversification will help determine if both companies can work together. Since Parks is a retailer and Super Bakery, a food service, Mitchell and Harris may explore crossing Super Bakery over to a retail market while Parks branches out into institutional sales and some food services. "Then we can create some synergy and growth between both companies," Mitchell says.

CONTINUING THE PARKS LEGACY

Mitchell will receive help from Parks' former owner, Raymond V. Haysbert Sr. As part of the deal, Haysbert, now 76, will serve as a consultant and work for the company for 15 hours a week over the next seven years. In return he'll receive $25,000 for each of the next two years. He'll also receive a 4% stake in the company and earn 0.5% of Parks gross revenues over the next seven years--but not more than $110,000 annually. His son, Reginald Haysbert Jr., who previously served as Parks' president, will also serve as a consultant, and receive $150,000 over two years, along with a 2% stake in the company. Before the company went bankrupt, Reginald was paid $100,000, and his father $35,000, annually.

Raymond Haysbert has been with Parks since 1952, when the company was just nine months old and there were only six employees, including founder Henry Parks. Haysbert has seen the company through highs (including becoming the first publicly traded black-owned company in 1969) and lows--the last several years of lows taking a toll on his health. He was treated for prostate cancer in 1991, and suffered a heart attack in 1994. But he takes pride in how the company, much like himself, has overcome obstacles and refused to go away.

It was Haysbert who restored Parks to black-ownership the last time it was in financial distress. The company lost that status in 1977, when it was purchased by the Miami-based Norin Corp. for $5 million. But Parks suffered financially under their management, recording its first losses ever. When Norin was purchased by Canadian Pacific Enterprises in 1980, a flour products manufacturing subsidiary of Canadian Pacific Railroad, Parks was suddenly on the market again.

Haysbert and 12 other investors formed a group to purchase the company for approximately $2.5 million in 1980. Eventually, Haysbert grew to own 97.5% of the company's stock, and his son Reginald, the remaining 2.5%. But after a series of setbacks, Haysbert says it was time to move on. Just last year, Parks came very close to being sold when a letter of intent to purchase the company was signed by Michu Corp. Michu is an investment firm controlled by W. Kevin Wright, former general counsel to the late Reginald F. Lewis and TLC Beatrice International Holdings, and Anthony S. Fugett, president, CEO of ASF Systems Inc., a Baltimore-based computer equipment company. Haysbert was so sure that he had a done deal, he spoke expectantly at the time of retirement. But, in January, the purchase fell through.

"It collapsed simply because they couldn't get their money together," Haysbert recalls. "It was roughly $10 million, and they kept having delays and asking for extensions."

There seems to be enough support to make the current deal go ahead as planned. Harris, the celebrated "Immaculate Reception" receiver, knows that nailing Parks could truly represent the catch of a lifetime.

"I'm still very young in this business and I have a lot more to learn," says the 46-year-old Harris. "But it's an exciting time for me, and there's a lot that can be accomplished here. The history of this company is very special but it hasn't been developed into the jewel that it really should be. Our goal now is to make it shine."