CEOs You Should Know- Arnold Packaging

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
iHeartMedia Presents CEOs you should know.I am John Dinkle, former president publisher
of the Botember Business Journal and nowfounder and CEO of DNKLE Business Development.
This iHeartRadio CEOs you should know,and I'm here today with mc Arnold,
president of Arnold Packaging. Welcome Beckand thanks for being here. Hi John,
good to see you and talk toyou as always, and thanks for

(00:22):
having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for being here.
Looking forward to our conversation. Ithought we'd get started by getting to know
the organization a little bit more so, for those who may not be familiar,
could you tell us more about ArnoldPackaging sure. Arnold Packaging is a
ninety one year old manufacturer and distributorof packaging materials. We were founded in

(00:45):
nineteen thirty three by my great grandfather. Since then, we've exploded into a
company with two divisions. We havea packaging division where we are distributing packaging
materials. We also have a containermanufacturing so we make boxes simply stated.
And then eight years ago we starteda division that is committed to automation.

(01:07):
So our job there is to helpmanufacturers and e commerce distributors to be more
productive. So we're using tools likerobotics, autonomous vehicles, vision systems to
lessen the load on demandpower so thatthey can get more product out the door
with the same amount of effort.So in the ability to compete in the

(01:29):
global marketplace, productivity is one ofthe most important parts, and that team
is dedicated to productivity improvement. That'sgreat. Yeah, yeah, I actually
want to talk about that a littlebit more later on. Actually talk about
your mission before we get into that. Yeah, I think our tagline does
a great job. Our tagline isprotecting your product and your profit, so

(01:52):
we do that in a very quantitativeway. We've identified six key components of
packaging and a few of them arethings like reducing your freight, reducing your
labor, reducing your materials through redesign, and using more exotic materials, customer
experience sustainability. So we stand upthese six pillars to a customer's operation and

(02:15):
look to identify ways that we canhelp improve. So, for example,
freight, if we can make thecustomer's product smaller or lighter, then we
can help them reduce their freight.We are very very high tech and very
high touch and know it as aninety one year old company. We have
a lot of technical expertise and weare very heavily engaged with the customer.

(02:38):
So the opposite of a catalog,if you will, I mean we are
in the weeds with our customers,sleeves rolled up shoulder to shoulder on their
production lines, helping them to bemore profitable through those six different things that
I just shared with you. Gotit? Got it? Thank you?
I appreciate you sharing that. Andwho are your clients and where do you
see growth opportunity any particular industries thatyou see lots of opportunity in the year's

(03:02):
film. Yeah, we have.We have about eight hundred purchasing customers and
they're pretty well segmented between manufacturing anddistribution and really e commerce distribution where let's
say a company like i'll pick underArmor is taking a shirt out of a
case and putting it into a box. A lot of the products, for
example, that show up on yourfront porch, that's a box, it's

(03:23):
tape clothed that has cushioning, ora bag of air. Those are the
types of products that we sell.We do a lot of work in aerospace
and military on our packaging side.Again back to that highly technical component.
We have packaging engineering on staff,so we will design and create intellectual property

(03:44):
to help our customers ship their productsaround the world. That's cool. That's
cool. So what sets you apartfrom your competitors the technical piece, you
know, heavy heavy investment and engineering. We do a lot of work with
with airplane manufacturers, so we willdesign containers to ship aerospace parts around the
world. And if you look atwhere the airplane manufacturers are, they are

(04:08):
obviously the US, but they're inCanada Bombardier, and they're in Brazil,
Embrierir, They're all over the world. And these parts get shipped all over
the world to support either the manufactureof airplanes Airbus in France, for example,
or the repair and maintenance of airplanes. So we have a team of
engineers that are dedicated to creating packagesthat will allow very complex parts that are

(04:32):
very expensive and time critical to gofrom anywhere to anywhere you can think of
on the planet. Yeah, great, thank you, appreciate you sharing that.
Yeah, I wanted to get backto the kind of robotics and automation
piece because you guys made a namefor yourself years ago and it seems like
you know AI and jen Ai.It's such a big topic now everybody's talking

(04:56):
about and and you know and anyevery company needs to start thinking about this
and how to automate processes. Butyou guys been doing this for a pretty
long time, and especially from therobotics side. I mean this gosh mic,
this goes back what ten years ormore or something like that. So
talk a little bit about you know, how you know that's impacted your business

(05:18):
and when you think about the futureand you think about the future of artificial
intelligence and robotics, what does thatmean to your industry and Arnold Packaging in
particular. Yeah, you know,John, We've got a very cool lens
from which to watch how all ofthis has progressed. And you're right,
you've been in this space for sometime. And the reason we got there

(05:40):
was because our customers kept asking usto help them get product out the door,
which was just good for you know. We didn't talk about productivity the
way we do now, but itwas I can't meet my customer demands.
My overtime is too high, I'mhaving to constantly flex up with temporary workforce.
How can you help me in thisway? And honestly, we didn't

(06:01):
have really a way to do it. We sold some end of line packaging
machinery which has been out there fordecades and decades, but we weren't able
to take it to the next stepand really dig in for the customer and
analyze the needs and be able tocreate or help them create a business case
to make the right types of investment. So out of that, you know,
fast forward to today. You know, we've always used AI and I'll

(06:26):
give you some different platforms, thingslike vision, the ability to do inspection
and make sure that a critical partis correct before it goes out the door,
where you know, historically you wouldhave had a person standing there.
And as wonderful as humans are,they just don't have the capability of seeing
and identifying certain things. You know, They're subject to fatigue, there's subject

(06:47):
to any number of things that couldhave an imperfection of a very critical let's
call it an airplane part go outthe door when it shouldn't. So things
like cameras, you know, thingslike cameras, we have been using artificial
and intelligence. Right if you showif you show a camera what right looks
like, ten thousand times, itknows what wrong looks like. And that's

(07:08):
some of the early renditions of AI. I mean, now fast forward to
generative and some of the things betweenchat, GPT and some of the more
socialized, more mainstream AI. We'vebeen working in AI the entire time.
Think about autonomous vehicles. You know, we now have vehicles that drive themselves

(07:28):
around manufacturing plants. They could betaking parts to a line, they could
be taking finished goods away from aline. So if you think about the
camera systems that are used to allowa vehicle to navigate itself safely through a
manufacturing plant, we have been inthat space for I mean, that has
been prevalent in manufacturing and distribution formany, many years, long before it's

(07:50):
now hit what looks more like mainstreamthrough large language models and that type of
AI that's being heavily referred to today. Yeah, that's cool, that's right.
I appreciate you walking us through thatkind of switch gears a little bit.
I wanted to talk about your decisionto go to Trade Point Atlantic.
I know it's your home base nowand you've got quite a large facility out

(08:15):
there. Talk about the move there, and it's been a couple of years,
but you know, some folks mightstill might not know that you're home
based out there. But what wasthe decision making behind that? Yeah,
So we had been in one zipcode for we're ninety one years old.
We'd been in one zip code foreighty nine years and bounced around inside of
the Baltimore City proper, and Ihad always kept a look at trade point

(08:39):
what was going on? You know? My father called in this very plot
of land which was the old BethlehemSteel Bethlen Yeah hip yard, which had
just been sitting here literally rusting anddilapidating for decades and decades, and what
it was bought and we started tosee rejuvenation and we started to see the
investment. I quickly looked at thetiming around the least and what we had

(09:01):
done or where we were, andit looked like it could align very very
well. On top of that,this is the largest piece of industrial land
in North America and thirty six hundredacres. So strategically, I mean obviously
the ability to come into a brandnew building that we could build the suit
to our needs, which can beunique at times as a manufacturer and a
distributor, a but also strategically beingthe packaging company in the largest piece of

(09:26):
industrial land in North America just madeall the sense in the world. And
you know, the team here tradePoint is fantastic. You know, Kerrie
and Aaron and Mark have just beenso easy to work with and so accommodating
to help us build the building,get settled in and get back to doing
what we do. So the starsaligned, we got it worked out,

(09:50):
and they built an amazing space forus, which has helped us to compete,
made us more fierce, and weabsolutely got this one right. I
love it. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And being I know you're
you're very active in the manufacturing communityin Maryland and imagine around the country.
You know, could you talk aboutMaryland's kind of future in manufacturing, I

(10:13):
know, with what's happened with thesupply chain, you know, years ago,
through the pandemic and now coming withthe you know, kind of a
little bit of uncertainty. I thinkin the economy people are feeling and the
hope that you know, bringing moremanufacturing back to the States. What what
what? I know that's it mightbe a loaded question and kind of difficult

(10:33):
to answer, but from where yousit and all your involvement in manufacturing for
Maryland. What what does that looklike to you? Not a loaded question
at all, And you know I'llhave to I will have to, you
know, call myself that I am. I'm biased and absolutely a homer.
But I think that Maryland is positionedbeautifully. I mean, if you look
at the types of resources that wehave right here in our own industrial park.

(10:58):
You know, we have multimodal wehave a deep water port. We
are positioned right in the middle ofthe country in the eastern seaboard if you
look at our transportation capabilities and theability to go west. So that's just
the physical assets of Maryland. Throwin the education system that we have,
whether it's Hopkins or UNBC or Universityof Maryland. We have a lot of

(11:20):
engineering talent here from Maryland. Youhave Delaware. We have ele engineering talent
from Delaware. So I think froman opportunity perspective, it's as good as
it can be. Now, wecertainly have some things we've got to start
doing differently. You know, firstwe have to value manufacturing. We have

(11:41):
to acknowledge how important it is.And the pandemic, without question, expose
the country and it really exposed Marylandand to how reliant we are on everybody
else to make everything for us.So the first step is acknowledging that it's
important and that we have a problem, meaning that our ability to compete is
very is very challenged. But whenyou put together some motivation and some talent

(12:07):
and listen to what we talked aboutjust now, with the automation piece and
the technology, it has the abilityit could give us the competitive advantage we
need to compete by being as productiveas we need to be. Look,
we're not on shoring everything, butthere are certain segments and pockets and products
that are ripe to be reshored onshore or incubate from here and then be

(12:31):
commercialized into the national and global markets. Maryland is positioned beautifully, just going
to take a acknowledgment and then atremendous amount of leadership and commitment to driving
through. Do you do you feelwe have that leadership to make that happen.
Now that's a luted question, John, but I'm happy to joke right

(12:52):
into it. Listen, I wouldsay that it's better than it has been.
I have been in this role forthirty years now. My father passed
away when I was young. Itook over early. So I would say
that it's better than it has everbeen. Yeah, there's a long way
to go. I mean, wehave a lot of competing priorities here in
the state, and you know,only Marylyn is very small. Only about

(13:13):
four percent of our GDP is manufacturingbased lost this demonstration. Kids don't see
it. So we've got to getthat back in line. But it's better
than it has been at any time. But there's still a hell of a
lot more opportunities that we can leverageand get oursel's position to absolutely compete.

(13:33):
Yeah, yeah, thank you,well, set, I appreciate that.
All right, I'm gonna switch gearson you a little bit. I love
talking about leadership. You know,how would you describe your leadership style?
Highly collaborative is how I typically do. I'm a teacher. My favorite thing
to do is teach. I mean, I've already spoken a bunch to how
we show up as a very technicalexpert. That is my favorite part.

(13:56):
We have an automation division sheerly becauseof my curious nature and and what how
I think about innovation and how importantI think innovation is. So I would
say highly collaborative but also demanding,you know, to be excellent and be
the best and compete. It's hardand and to do that and pull that

(14:16):
off and be different and differentiated,it requires a level of demand. Uh
So I would also characterize myself asdemanding too. Yeah, And I like
that, And I appreciate you sayingthat. I asked this question a lot,
and I don't get that answer verymuch. And it's a it's an
important piece. It's it's you know, I love the collaboration. I felt

(14:39):
like I was a very collaborative uhleader to at the BBJ. But the
demand piece is good, Like it'sespecially the kind of this day and age
that you know that there should becertain expectations, minimum expectations that you expect
from your employees, you know,to do their jobs and you know,

(15:00):
and and ensure that they're taking careof customers and you know, scaring new
ones and all those kind of things. I I appreciate you saying that.
I think that's an important it's animportant characteristic, I guess in the lave
that you need to have and Ijust don't hear that very often, So
I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah. Look, John, I mean,
you know, doing Doing hard thingsrequires hard work, and there's something that

(15:24):
I'm watching. The pandemic was avery interesting time, and I will say
that the inflation that ensued, Imean, obviously everybody understands the high price
nature of it, but there wasa two year period of time where where
we just sat by raising prices andnot actually working hard to capture market share
and do things that were different becausewe had this insulation where we were able

(15:48):
to grow without going out and competingfor market share. And I think that's
one of the things that I'm watchingfor we are really working hard in that
snap back, you know, backto older times. And I'm I'm not
trying to be you know, I'mtelling you stories about nickel bread, but
but I don't see that level oftenacity that I have seen historically, and

(16:10):
and you know, doing hard thingsrequires hard work at a level of tenacity
that that seems to be slipping inspots. Yeah, I would agree,
I would agree with that. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And
speaking of you mentioned the pandemic,what what are some things that you learned
through managing or communication or leading peoplethrough that time, because I imagine,
yeah, it was it was toughfor everybody or different some some businesses fared

(16:34):
very well and some not so much. But what what are some things that
you learned? Yeah, boy,so one we have a great one of
our favorite one of our favorite thingsaround here is efficiency equals right times commitment.
And that's a simple way of sayingthat as long as you're very committed,
or the more committed you are,right isn't as important. And the

(16:55):
pandemic was absolutely that moment. Ihave never experienced so many any high speed
pivots in my entire life. Whereyou know, we would have a Monday
meeting. We pulled everybody together everyMonday. Now, at that time,
we laid off almost our entire workforcebecause you know, when you're building,
when you're building boxes for airplane parts, and nobody's flying airplanes, you're not

(17:15):
building any airplane part boxes. Soat one point we furloughed our entire manufacturing
workforce. But going into that,you know, we had the PPP funds,
so we were paying our guys tosweep floors because no one needed any
boxes because nobody was shipping anything inthe early days. But we would meet
on Mondays and we would do updatesand the information changing so rapidly as the

(17:38):
science was presenting, just had usstaying committed over communicating, making sure that
everybody was on the exact same page. I would say, you know,
much better organization coming out of COVIDthan going in. And you know,
I just think it prepares us.You know, you think I've never seen

(18:00):
it before, whether it's two thousandand you know, the Twin Towers to
the financial crisis to a pandemic.I don't know what's coming in the next
ten years, but I'm very likeyou're prepared. I don't know, I
got a confident that we've demonstrated thatwe will be committed and we will figure
it out. Yeah, it's like, what else do you got, I'll
make a lot. That's crazy.I appreciate you sharing all that. Yeah,

(18:22):
so so we'll get you excited aboutthe future of Arnold Packaging, the
teams that we're building, and itbuilt we you know, the pandemic was
also challenging because we had a lotof retirements, you know, very difficult,
just a high level of fatigue inall organizations, including ours. And
we had some people that had donegreat financially and they had saved and they

(18:42):
just said, you know, meck, I love it here, but I'm
done. You know, this isthis is, this is too much.
And we lost one hundred and twentysix years of experience in retirements through the
pandemic. So since then we've builtour teams back. We've got a lot
of really talented people, and soI'm most excited about these teams. But

(19:03):
really the innovation that will come throughthem, you know, we'll talk about
we talked about AI AI is backwardlooking. So you know, my message
to our team is as long aswe are innovating and we are creating,
there's nothing to scrape from us becausewe're doing it first. And that's the
types of teams that we're building.Yeah, that's cool, great answer.

(19:23):
What what keeps up at night?There's a lot of consolidation in our industry.
You know, we go through thesewaves, a lot of private equity.
There's still a lot of capital anda lot of money sloshing around in
the financial system in general, andthat right now in the packaging space is
being deployed for roll ups and consolidation. So we watch that carefully. The

(19:47):
bigger getting bigger, and you know, the opportunity for us is to get
more innovative and more agile, andbut still have to be able to compete.
And I think the challenge there ison the supplier base. You know,
how do we continue to be relevantto our suppliers such that we get
the support that we need that wecan compete, you know, we can

(20:07):
buy at a level that allows usto be competitive and profitable. So it's
a if anything, I'm keeping avery close eye on the incredibly rapid rate
of consolidation that's happening in our industry. Got it okay? Awesome? Well,
to wrap things up, is thereanything else you'd like our listeners to
know about you and Arnold Packaging?I will tell you just that my wife

(20:30):
and I have a podcast called Loveand Business, and all the things that
you and I just talked about,we get into on a bi weekly basis
and share what a ninety one yearold business and an eight year old business
are doing. My wife's company superscrappy US. I worried getting, you
know, to stay or complacent,and so that's been something that has also

(20:52):
kept me very excited about not justour industry, but getting out of bed
every day, which which isn't alwayseasy as an entrepreneur. But that's been
a way to share our challenges andour struggles and spend time together at the
same time. So that's been somethingthat's been huge and helping to you know,
reinvent, reinvigorate, stay away fromruts, which are always dangerous as
an entrepreneur. That's been huge inthat regard. Okay, great, thanks

(21:17):
thanks sharing that. And lastly,just tell us how to get more information
about Arnold Packaging. Well, John, we are about as conspicuous as one
kid. So Arnold Packaging dot com, Arnold Automation dot com. Uh Mick
Arnold will will jump you down anever ending rabbit hole of whatever you want
to learn. It'll get you tothe podcast, It'll teach you things about

(21:38):
packaging you never thought about or evenwanted to know about. It'll change the
way you ever walk through the homedepot ever from now on. But yeah,
we're we're incredibly conspicuous. But andI would love for the listeners to
check us out and check out thepodcast and and continue because we were both
teaching and that's just a vehicle forus to do that. Great. Well,

(21:59):
thanks, thank you so much.So D likes catching up with you.
It's been too long. I reallyappreciate you taking the time out and
congrats to you of bread on yourdue daughters a baby daughter, so really
exciting for you. And again appreciateyour time and thanks. Yeah. John,
always a pleasure. I appreciate it. This has been iHeartMedia CEOs.

(22:21):
You should know