This display won Brookdale the cut-sheet point-of-purchase award at last year's Society of Plastic Engineer's Thermoforming Division's Annual Parts Competition in Nashville. Most recently a scaled down version of the above music station was recognized as best in the Heavy-Gauge-Thermoformed Assembly category at the Society of Plasics Engineer's winter meetings.

Brookdale, Minnesota's oldest privately-held thermoformer, was founded in 1963 by Abe Corson, who first concentrated on the sign-making market before adding blister packaging capabilities in the mid-'60s. With only two thermoforming machines, Corson and a sole employee were able to produce annual sales in excess of $100,000 while building a loyal customer base including: Lund Boats, Brown & Bigelow and even the U.S. Army.

In 1981 Corson signed a contract with Control Data to produce a static-dissipating, crush-resistant container for shipping of various computer components. This later turned out to be the stepping stone for Brookdale Plastics in the packaging of electronic equipment. Shortly after, Corson sold the company to Robert Kramer, who would develop the first anti-static plastic tray. As president of Brookdale Plastics, Kramer witnessed his company explode to $7.5 million in sales in 1998.

New Facility Adds To Brookdale

In 1994, Kramer moved the company to its current location in Plymouth, MN, giving Brookdale twice the manufacturing area and office space. The new facility also allowed for expansion of its engineering and production departments. In 1996, the expansion culminated with the addition of a complete manufacturing computer networking system.

According to Kramer, Brookdale has made serious investments in upgrading its plant. Examples include purchasing two American Plastic Machine die cutters, a ZMD thermoformer and a state-of-the-art computer system. "We've installed bigger, better and faster equipment," explains Kramer. "We've implemented quality assurance standards and invested in our inventory to be able to meet customer demands and allow ourselves to deliver quicker. But no matter how much we invest, our people turn out to be our most valuable resource -- time and time again."

The new building, Kramer says, has been a major factor for Brookdale's growth and with 60 full-time employees, Kramer has molded Brookdale into a company that is well-known for offering quality products and quality service to its customers.

"While settling into the new facility in '94, we were starting to get cramped right away -- adding more people and office furniture, we desperately needed more space," explained Lynn Weiss, marketing manager for Brookdale Plastics. "Robert had an idea to put a mezzanine deck in our office area for additional space, and the rest of us just could not see it. We were thinking how is this possibly going to work? Finally, he kept pushing the idea and it got to the point to where maybe we can see it, so we decided to talk about it and it worked out great. All along Robert had the vision and that is what this whole company is about. Robert having a vision and then just getting other people to see it."

Credit Kramer with stimulating his employees and adjusting to the needs of the customer. Brookdale's proprietary products have stemmed from Kramer's vision to seize the opportunity for its electronics trays, telecard packaging and audio P.O.P. displays. All of these have involved big risks, both financially and technologically. Fortunately for Brookdale, all of been big hits.

Visionary leads company to success

Control Data approached Brookdale in 1981 about a shipping problem it was having with its electronic microchips. Control Data was experiencing unacceptable damage levels to its products while in transit to the manufacturing facility. "I didn't know a lot about the computer industry, but I knew a lot about solving problems," says Kramer, who received an early test in his first year leading the Brookdale team.

Despite little knowledge of the microchip industry, Kramer and his team set about developing a thermoformed plastic tray that could withstand the rigors of transport. They needed to find a durable plastic material that was electrostatic-free as well, a crucial requirement for any electronics part.

After a year, Brookdale combined the right design and material combination for Control Data, which shared the new product with its California operations. Soon after, National Semiconductor called with an order. After making contact with other electronics companies, sales took off. Kramer was credited with creating the the first anti-static plastic tray, a huge breakthrough in the packaging of electronic equipment.

These trays are thermoformed by a specialized plastic, a conductive styrene with carbon black mixed in it. Electrically conducive and electrostatic-free, the carbon helps block out static electricity.

Brookdale continues to thermoform anti-static trays for the electronics industry and has developed a line that has now grown to 75 different stock products. With several different types in stock, different styles of the trays are also custom made.

"A company might not be able to use one of our 75 stock trays," said Kramer. "They might need a totally different process. Texas Instruments has different shaped parts then an Intel or National Semi-Conduction, so we have to adjust our tray to meet their needs."

Huge Risks Pay Off

"The jukebox was another huge risk -- financially and technically," explains Kramer. "'Could we do it?' and 'Should we do it?' were questions that many of us were asking."

Metacom, an audio products supplier also located in Plymouth, MN, contacted Brookdale in search of a better design and quality of its interactive audio point-of-purchase display unit. Brookdale was able to redesign, develop and re-tool an improved product in a very short amount of time.

"12 by 2000" Brookdale Plastics has set goals and achieved goals as well. Ever since Robert Kramer, president of Brookdale Plastics, came up with the "12 by 2000" slogan, the entire company has become involved. The slogan details Brookdale's goal to reach $12 million in sales revenue by the end of the year 2000. "I was sitting in my office one day with a sales person and we were talking about goals and that we had just doubled our sales in the last four years, going from $3 million to $6 million," explains Kramer. "I said that I wanted to double our sales again, but this time in three years. Right then and there I grabbed a magic marker out of my desk drawer and went out to the (freshly painted) wall outside my office and wrote "12 by 2000", and signed my name. It serves as a gentle reminder that this is our goal and we see it every day." Brookdale Plastics Revenues 1992 - $2.5 million 1993 - $3.0 million 1994 - $3.7 million 1995 - $4.1 million 1996 - $5.5 million 1997 - $6.1 million Projected 1998 - $7.5 million Goal - $12 million by 2000 Each of the employees at Brookdale have become involved in the quest to reach the "12 by 2000" goal. Each has signed their name to "the wall" as a sign of commitment in reaching the goal. This isn't just something located outside his office, it is throughout the entire facility as Brookdale had pins, notepads and sweatshirts printed that say "12 by 2000 -- Reach For It!" "The acquisition of Plastics Industries will hopefully help us reach this goal," says Kramer. "We are doing everything we can to get there. I am not going to sit here and say that we are going to make it or not, but we are doing everything we can to get there. It is like preparing for a race, I can't tell you we are going to win the race or not, but I can tell you that we are taking the steps to prepare for it.."

The enhanced design eliminated seven components using traditional plastic fasteners instead of nuts and bolts, decreasing Metacom's cost by nearly 25 percent and making overall assembly faster and cheaper.

The Metacom music station resembles a jukebox which displays a line of CDs and cassettes. It employs an interactive touch screen so customers can sample the music titles stocked in the display. A motion sensor is contained within the display, which when tripped by a passing customer, activates the jukebox to play short music samples to attract attention.

The Metacom music station is designed to enhance the sale of CDs and cassettes with an appearance that is enhanced with back-lit transparencies and vacuum metalized parts. The music station is displayed at major discount stores and larger retail outlets.

"Some of this project was figured out on the fly," says Lynn Weiss, marketing manager for Brookdale Plastics. "We talked about it and decided we were going to do it, but we weren't entirely sure how we were going to do it."

Brookdale vacuum forms 22 separate parts from glycol-modified PET and high-impact polystyrene to complete the project. The process begins by feeding a flat sheet of plastic into a press where it is heated, then placed on a mold where vacuum pressure sucks the soft plastic onto the mold to obtain the desired shape. After cooling briefly, a die cutter, which acts much like a cookie cutter, cleanly cuts the shape of the plastic as the cutting die presses into the thermoformed sheet of plastic. The pieces are then machined with a hand router, and assembly of all the different shaped shells is completed prior to being sent to the customer.

Last year, Brookdale was presented the Thermoforming Division's Point Of Purchase Display Award at the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) annual conference for its development of the Metacom display.

"We were always four steps ahead when developing this project, thinking 'When we get to this point, this is what we need to get done and where we need to be,'" says Weiss. "It was good planning, but we were also lucky to have the opportunity, take the opportunity and succeed. We won the award and now we are doing more and more displays."

"That is one of those examples that Lynn says, I see an opportunity and convince everybody here of doing it," says Kramer. "We talked about each of the risks and dangers of doing the jukebox and found out ways to minimize those risks and minimize those dangers. As long as we were one step ahead of the problem, we were okay. And we always were."

Brookdale is currently working on creating three new P.O.P. displays and has produced and shipped more than 2,700 juke box units to major discount stores and large retail outlets.

"Each display model is for a specific customer and includes whatever that customer wants because it is the customers proprietary display that we develop, mold, assemble and ship," says Kramer.

And sometimes install.

"We had fabricated 100 jukebox displays to be installed in Meijer's stores throughout Michigan, but the president of Meijer's was a little nervous because he didn't think they would get installed in time," says Kramer.

Meijer's store personnel was bogged down with other responsibilities as Christmas season was fast approaching and didn't have the spare time to get them installed. Kramer says that when he heard this, he offered to have his own employees go from store to store and install the displays.

"I asked him if he would like us to install them and he said, 'What? You guys don't install.' I said, 'We don't, but we can,'" explains Kramer. "This is another example of how we search out opportunities and needs of the customer. You come to Brookdale and you find solutions. The word 'can't' is not used very often around here."

At the recent Thermoforming Institute's Winter Meeting in Scottsdale, AZ, the Metacom Meijer's Music Station, was recognized as best in the Heavy-Gauge - Thermoformed Assembly category. A scaled down version of the interactive merchadising display that received an award last year, this display station, was vacuum formed from 15 different parts from glycol-modified PET and high-impact polystyrene,

Brookdale, which thermoforms diverse, thin and heavy gauge plastic, including PVC, HIPS, ABS, HDPE, PETG, conductive, anti-static and other specialty materials, expanded the company's horizons while following a lead which led to the purchase of two new machines.

Dialed In

A phonecard company representing Target Stores was searching out clamshell packaging for a phone product and contacted Brookdale Plastics. The company was putting together a store-brand phonecard and wanted Brookdale to provide contract packaging services for the effort. Target needed a higher level of security to guard against theft of the cards at the retail stores.

Brookdale offered to provide Target with radio frequency (RF) sealed packages to its customers using its thermoformed PVC clamshells. Using an RF seal machine on each package is vital in controlling vandalism and tampering on exclusive, high-quality items like phone cards, Kramer says. The RF seal machine, however, was still on order when it came time to get the first order out, so Kramer improvised.

Brookdale produced the first 150,000 packages with a "partial-snap" closure system with four strategically placed staples providing the final seal. "Target needed the first run of packages before our machine could arrive, so we worked together to find a good temporary solution," says Kramer.

"Our work with the club stores for the Calling Card Display has been extremely successful," says Weiss. "We thermoform the clamshells and blisters here and are able to fill all of our displays with the product so when the display is delivered to the stores they just have to pop off the top the box and it is ready to go."

Brookdale has created a national warehouse store packaging program by creating the displays and arranging for the corrugated boxes, pallets, filling of the products to go in the display and the distribution to stores across the nation.

Brookdale provides contract packaging for Fortune 500 manufacturers and major retailers across the country. The contract packaging service includes: RF sealing, automated blister sealing, insert or backer card printing, package assembly, labeling, distribution and inventory management services. Brookdale's contract packaging area is tightly secured with a restrictive electronic entry system and 24 hour video surveillance.

"Around the perimeter of the telecard packages is what is called RF sealing, which required us to buy one Callanan RF sealing machine and by the time it was done a second machine was purchased. In turn, we have seen millions of dollars worth of business by seizing that type of idea. It comes from fostering an environment where people know that hare-brained ideas can be converted into action items." Kramer said that has been one of the hardest messages to disseminate. "We want to hear what they are saying and know what they are saying and react to what they are saying, if at all possible," said Kramer. "Lynn can deliver that message well and I can deliver it well. We just keep hammering into people's heads that when you get these hairbrained thoughts bring them back and lets talk about them. We have to let them know that we are going to react positively because a lot of our current projects have stemmed through a hair brained idea, like the telecard packaging.

Local Helping Hand

Brookdale was contacted by a large 2,000 employee, Minneapolis-based manufacturing company that was having problems with their card and blister supplier. The company would receive their cards and blisters, but they wouldn't stick together properly. They brought this problem to Brookdale and the problem was solved.

"I told them they could buy the blisters from us, we would sell them the cards and guarantee that the two will work together," said Kramer. "Now, we go to their three locations weekly. We let ourselves in, take inventory of what they used during the week, replace the blisters and the cards and write up what they are going to need for the next week. They love it because they don't have to devote their own staff to this and if there is a problem with it, it is our problem. This is a very novel approach that you just don't see anybody else doing."

Brookdale also utilizes the manufacture of its blisters and clam shells in the medical industry as they design and thermoform non-invasive clam shell packaging out of clear PVC. One example of this would be their Kit Tray, which is a clam shell used for off-site testing which snaps together with all the test samples and equipment inside and is small enough to fit into a fed ex envelope to be sent to a lab for testing.

Customer Service To a T

"We probably aren't going to be the cheapest company," said Weiss. "People come to us and will want us to look at a project and we will be upfront with them. Our quality is very, very high. We aren't going to be the lowest price. At first, price is the main factor people look at. Later on, when they see who we are, see the products we have done and outcomes of those products, a lot of times that is enough."

She went on to say that customers see that it is worth the extra money to go with a company that they can rely on. They will also know they are going to get a quality product when they need it.

"If we talk about service," said Weiss, "I would say confidently that we are far and away superior to 90 percent of our competition."

Kramer agreed saying that when it comes to the quality of work product they ship out the door, he would hold Brookdale up against anybody.

"When it comes to the ability of our staff at any level in the company, I would say we're comparable. When it comes to pricing, we are not the cheapest, but if we were the cheapest, I don't think we could give what we give," explained Kramer. "We couldn't keep reinvesting in new equipment by being the cheapest or upgrading our computer systems by being the cheapest. You can't do that by being dirt cheap. I think more and more people are finding that it is worth the money to pay us to do it because they don't have to make the 80 phone calls a day wasting quality time."

"Sometimes we will do what the customers call general contracting and we will do some of the sourcing for them where we will tell them what they should buy. They buy it and handle the cash and credit part of it and ship the parts right here," says Kramer. "They save on the markup price and we assemble it. They like it because they can save a lot of money although it can present problems for us because we can't always control the pipe line as well as we would like and things don't always arrive on time.

Brookdale has customers all over the world depending on the different markets. In the proprietary markets, they have customers throughout the world and in the custom markets they reach Asia, United Kingdom, Sweden and ship parts to Italy, Ireland, Israel, Asia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Scotland.

Future Endeavor?

One idea that Kramer is trying to convince his staff of involves a company that wants Brookdale to go to each of their stores and do some product placement, writing up their orders for them.

"They are having trouble with their current vendors and I said we might be interested, we might not be," explained Kramer. "We have never done business with this company before but they told me 'well, if you are interested, we would have no hesistation in having you do it because we have all the faith and confidence in Brookdale Plastics.'

"You don't hear that from a lot of customers. Especially customers we have never dealt with before. He is going on our reputation. If we do it though, we had better deliver."

How does a company accept such offers from companies?

"It is called attitude," said Weiss, "Having the confidence within to take the risk knowing that it could fail."

Kramer said occasionally customers are a bit suspicious of Brookdale because they have heard other company's make promises before. "It sometimes takes a second or third time after we make a promise to a company and follow through with it that they finally believe us. They are saying to themselves,'I have been told this before, but the fact of the matter is that you guys do what you say.' It's not to say that we haven't had some failures, but that we have had a lot of successes.

New Acquisition Unfolding Just recently, Brookdale Plastics entered into an agreement to acquire (memorandum of understanding to acquire) Plastics Industries, located in White Bear Lake, MN., just 36 miles away from Brookdale. Brookdale plans to do R&D work at that facility, working on proprietary projects and complicated projects on a trial and error basis. "They have additional talent, processing capacity, and resources," said Kramer. "What we have learned over the years is that we possess certain strengths and weaknesses. They want to be apart of those strengths and we want to be a part of their strengths. It will be a great mix. We talked to Terry Wagener (president of Plastics Industries) twice in the last few years and the third time we talked to him was the charm. They are great people, very smart, technically capable, competent operators and good solution people." A former high school teacher with 20 years in the plastics, Brookdale plans to have Wagener involved as the Process Improvement Teacher to do just that. "We have rotary, sheet machines and inline machines, pretty diversified," said Kramer. "Now we will now have in-house mold making capabilities as well. Terry is really a person that I respect a lot in the industry and have known for 18 years. We plan to continue on his legacy by renaming that location the Wagener Facility as an honorary title for him. We are really excited about this acquisition." Ten years ago, Brookdale acquired a company called Pack-Al, so this marks the second acquisition in the companies history, but Kramer doesn't want people to think they are on a huge acquisition campaign. "This is our second acquisition in ten years," said Kramer. "We have been actively looking for an acquisition for the last 3-4 years. We have dated a lot of companies and gotten to the alter with a lot of companies, but this is the first one we are going to tie the knot with. I do believe this is all a part of the business enterprise. Growth strategies may involve new talent, new materials and machines and sometimes it involves new acquisitions.

The Special Tool

Kramer, who likes to challenge his staff to seek the unknown and ultimately succeed at every phase of the operation, brings a combination of his humorous side to Brookdale as well.

Last month, Robert, preparing to give a presentation to one of their major customers, 3M, introduced himself to the group as the President, Chief Bottle Washer and Head Check Signer at Brookdale Plastics. "There are some companies who are so serious about life," said Kramer. "It is possible that we can have fun while we are doing this too."

Prior to a visit to a Miami-based company who was interested in teaming up with Brookdale, to give them a sense of what Brookdale was all about, Weiss used a video camera and took them on a Jay Leno-style tour of Brookdale Plastics. "We were walking around the plant and realized that this is a pretty fun placed to be," said Weiss. "We are a little biased of course but we are also very super critical of ourselves and that is how we have gotten to where we are. You look inside peoples cubicles here and it isn't just the picture of the family and the kids, the phone and the blank wall.Their is a whole lot more going on at Brookdale and a whole lot more personality within these walls then you'd find at other companies," added Kramer.

A type of fun, relaxed atmosphere was displayed when Robert and Lynn were singing "Happy Birthday" over the speaker phone to one of their customers or when they planned a going away lunch for an employee on her final day of work.

"We do our damnedest to respect each other and treat each other how we would want to be treated," said Kramer. "Lynn is a critical part of this because she will make sure that things are communicated well and make sure people are treated fairly. She is a real advocate for that and I think that kind of culture Lynn and I like, people appreciate. I don't think that most people here even know how much effort goes into supporting an environment like that because it's is a lot of unappreciated effort."

A reason why Brookdale is respected so highly by its customers stems from respect from the employees at Brookdale Plastics as well. Kramer engraved individual name plates on all of the lockers on the plant floor and on the individual cubicles in the office with the name of the employee and the year that person began at Brookdale.

Brookdale recently did an employee attitude survey and found that, as a collective group, nothing was rated below par.

"Some companies don't even want to do those survey's because it is a huge risk and they don't want to see the results," said Weiss. "We figured it is important enough to take the risk and find out what are we doing wrong and where do we need to improve. We had some things we needed to improve on, but most of it was 'we were doing really well' responses. The main response that came back from 'What do you like about Brookdale?', over and over again the response was 'it is like a family', 'people here are friendly and care about each other.' It sounds really sappy and corny, but its true."

"When I talk to people about why they stay here they will say 'I like so and so' or 'people treat me nicely' or 'they always say hello to me.' It makes a big, big difference," said Kramer. "We view it as more of a partnership now than a two way street. Not everyone is equal, not everyone gets to vote, but we do our best to make it that way. "

Family of Motivation

"I have known Robert eight years and that is just Robert," said Weiss. "I know him and his parents pretty well and that is what Robert is. He doesn't have the typical business persons background and I am convinced that is why this is not the typical manufacturing company. I am convinced that there is a direct correlation there."

"The collective ages here have a lot to do with it as well," said Kramer. "I am 42 and most companies have maybe half or whole generation-older presidents than me in charge and I think there is a difference in personalities there. I attend the thermoforming institute twice a year which has a huge age differential, from the low 30s to low 70's. When you hear the differences of people's attitudes about their workers, it is like man, no wonder these owners are so unhappy, they treat everybody so miserably. You get what you give."

Brookdale is a young company but that staff also includes a special 76-year-old. Roberts father, Ben, 76, has worked at Brookdale three days a week for 12 years and is involved in shipping and receiving and also acts as a messenger. "Anything that needs to get done. He is our secret weapon. His age and his spirit are not the same," said Weiss. "He is a 76-year-old person with the spirit of a 36-year-old person and the more people like that will obviously infiltrate into the rest of the company."

The Perfect Position

"This is a great job for me," says Kramer. "There is the people side of it, the mechanical side of it and the tinkering side of it. I know enough about a lot of things to be dangerous. But I also know enough about a lot of things to see opportunities as well."

"Robert is the type that will see an opportunity two steps before everybody else will even have an idea," says Weiss.

"I am convincing them of things right now and they don't even know it," jokes Kramer.

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