Reinventing CardPak

Transformation

CardPak's roots go back to 1965 when it was formed as a spin off from American Packaging Corp., focusing on skinboard manufacturing. Nine years later it entered the blister card market, and by 1990, sales reached $10 million a year, reports Petrelli.

As bad as the recent economic conditions have been, surviving "stormy weather" is old hat for CardPak—literally. "Not just once, but twice, natural disasters almost destroyed the company," says Petrelli. "In 1994, flooding—almost three and a half feet on the production floor—stopped production and in 1996, record snowfall collapsed the building roof and caused a fire due to the downed power lines. The flooding caused $1.3 million in damage, but CardPak lost no customers during the shutdown. The snow and fire caused $12 million in damages and, again, no customers were lost during a two-year rebuilding process," he says. "The ability to keep the company afloat during these two terrible disasters could not have happened if it hadn't been for our owners, Rick and Lisa Thomas and the group of managers and supervisors that held the company together at that time. We are fortunate that this same group of employees would become instrumental in leading the critical transformation and recent rebuilding process."