M&W HEAD: PEOPLE MADE THE DIFFERENCE

CAPE GIRARDEAU - The major reasons Mildenberger and Willing Manufacturing Co. chose to locate its first U.S. packaging plant in this area was the people and the interest shown by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, M&W President Harry Sanders observed Friday.

Speaking to the Chamber's monthly First Friday Coffee, Sanders explained the process M&W used in trying to decide where to locate two years ago. Initially, sites were studied in 40 states.

"Our major factor in coming to Cape was the people," explained Sanders. "We felt very comfortable with the workforce down here."

Sanders also praised chamber President Bob Hendrix and chamber Economic Development Director Judy Moss and other Chamber officials and members for their assistance with information used to make the decision to locate here.

"They brought us to Cape," he declared.

M&W is a German-based company that makes packaging materials. It began construction on a 130,000-square-foot plant in October of 1989. The plant is located off Highway 177, north of the Procter and Gamble Paper Products plant.

About 30 percent of what M&W makes is seven-color packaging used by Procter and Gamble.

Sanders pointed out that his company has production at about 50 percent right now, and should be at full production by mid-year. The total investment in this plant by mid-year will be $50 million.

Currently, there are 86 employees at M&W, but by mid-year that will grow to about 150, up to an end-of-the-year total of 200.

Sanders explained that the new plant is constructed campus-style in seven different buildings. That format was used so that each production area of the company can be expanded without interfering with another.

"We built it this way because we'd like to stay here and expand," said Sanders.

The M&W president recalled a visit to Cape Girardeau he made with his boss two years ago. He had narrowed his list of sites to eight states, with four sites in each state. Sanders took his boss on a whirlwind tour, trying to visit every place in one week. At each place, Chamber representatives offered greetings and tried to convince them to locate in their area.

Sanders recalled how they had landed at the Cape airport on Feb. 14, 1989, and came to the Holiday Inn for the evening so they could attend a breakfast here the next morning.

When the group arrived at the Holiday Inn, they were greeted by 30-40 citizens. "It impressed us very much," said Sanders. "We felt very much at home here."

Sanders admitted getting the new plant operating was challenging and several problems had to be overcome.

"You have to expect problems starting out from scratch, but we had a lot less problems than we anticipated," he remarked.

The company was founded in 1973 in Gronau, West Germany and employs 450 at that plant.