JACKSON BUSINESS KICKS OFF QUIETLY

JACKSON -- Unistar opened quietly in January, repainting a building, moving in loads of plastic-manufacturing equipment and hiring about 30 people.

In its first six months of operation, the small factory at the corner of North High Street and West Independence did $1.5 million in sales.

Dale Schumacher Monday updated the Jackson Chamber of Commerce about his company's development, saying the business climate was ripe for growth if Unistar management decided to do it.

Schumacher's own career has spanned a few decades and two countries. He moved from Los Angeles to Jackson 25 years ago and has worked with Atlas Plastics, The Resin Exchange and later Spartech.

Schumacher left Spartech in 1991 to start a plastics company in Mexico; returned to the U.S. to work at Synteen, a plastics firm in Richmond, Ind.; and came back to Jackson to start Unistar.

Because of difficulty obtaining start-up capital, Unistar primarily operates on its own cash flow, a rarity for first-year businesses.

The company does custom compounding -- creating a plastic for a particular use and giving it the properties it needs.

But what makes environmentalists most happy about Unistar is its use of tire rubber to create products, including the footrest on a Murray riding lawnmower. Companies have reused tire rubber for about a year and a half.

"It's difficult to break tires down, and then it's difficult to put them back together," Schumacher said. "We put a little of our plastics knowledge into it and made a cost-effective product with lots of flexibility."

One of Unistar's growth plans would allow it to have 135 employees in two years, but Schumacher said he wasn't sure what path his company would take.

In other business, the Jackson chamber discussed participation in the University of Missouri Extension Service's First Impression program. The program matches similarly sized cities, and delegations from each city tour the other.

What the delegations find allows each city to work on weak points and continue building on strong points.

The chamber is looking for about eight people for its delegation, which could go to Murphysboro, Ill., in early October. The matching city hasn't been decided for sure.