VIP Industries carries on its founders' vision, providing employment for people with developmental disablilites

Most of the people who founded VIP Industries 43 years ago are no longer alive. But their legacy lives on as one of the most financially successful sheltered workshops in Missouri.

Hundreds of people with developmental disabilities have worked at VIP Industries over the years. They perform simple assembly jobs, sort office paper and cardboard for recycling, and pack retail displays, among other work.

VIP also employs dozens of staff to supervise the work, drive vans that take clients to and from their homes, and handle other jobs to make the production possible.

VIP Industries' link to its past is its chief executive, Hilary Schmittzehe, who at 80 years old continues to work full time. He jealously guards the secrets to success that allow the not-for-profit business to boast that it has no waiting list for employment, has never laid anyone off and finds jobs for people who have low rates of production.

"I've had people from the Department of Mental Health come and tell me, 'You are so successful, tell us how you did it,'" Schmittzehe said. "I told them, 'I will, if you will pay me $300,000 a year, I'll set it up and tell you how to do it.' Do you think they said yes? Hell no. And so what did I do? I kept my mouth shut. And that is the result of keeping my mouth shut, right there, what's in the books."

Susan Wallis, senior vice president of VIP Industries, shows the recently renovated kitchen at the sheltered workshop. (Fred Lynch)

That close-to-the-vest approach to VIP's business dealings doesn't stop with those who would like to copy its success. During a recent tour, senior vice president Susan Wallis declined to name any business currently contracting to have work done. And Schmittzehe's personality appears to be a big part of the ongoing friction with the Cape Girardeau County SB40 Board, the taxing entity that is the financial mainstay of VIP and which is undergoing a leadership transition because of the illness of chairman Robert Landgraf, another member of the founder's group.

Four not-for-profit organizations make up the VIP Industries family of affiliates. The Cape Girardeau County Association for Retarded Children, now the Association for Retarded Citizens, came first in 1958. In 1967, Schmittzehe and others founded Cape Girardeau Community Sheltered Workshop Inc., the official name of VIP Industries. Then came V.I.P. Vocational Services Inc. in 1986, a company that operates under the name Heartland Industries and provides continued employment for graduates of the sheltered workshop. The most recent organization to be formed is Regency Management Inc., founded in 1988 to provide apartments and a group home for clients at VIP.

The Association for Retarded Citizens provides recreation, residential living, social services, emergency food and shelter, help with entitlement programs and health screenings; Heartland Industries provides continued employment for graduates of the sheltered workshop, and Regency Management provides independent and semi-independent apartment living, case management, residential living skills, community resource skills and community integration skills.

The four organizations have combined cash reserves of $15.1 million, according to IRS filings required of every tax-exempt not-for-profit group. Their combined revenue for the year ending June 30, 2009, was $6.7 million, with expenses of $4.8 million.

The large reserves are designed to make sure VIP endures, Schmittzehe said.

Hillary Schmittzehe is director of VIP Industries, the sheltered workshop in Cape Girardeau. (Fred Lynch)

"We have endowments in each one of those," he said. "People have donated money to put back and we can spend the interest off [the donated monies] and that is what we do."

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A sheltered workshop isn't designed to provide the developmentally disabled with wages that are enough to live on. Instead, the purpose is to teach job skills, provide the fulfillment of work and supplement disability income, housing support and medical care programs.

Cheryl Goza has worked at VIP for 25 years.

"Everybody's my friend around here," she said.

Goza lives at Regency House of Cape Girardeau, a 20-unit building on Silver Springs Road. "I've got my own apartment," she said proudly.

Larry Hoffman was 23 when he came to work at VIP Industries in 1980. On a recent afternoon, Hoffman was packing aquarium accessories, placing airhoses, pumps and instruction manuals into boxes that will be sold as part of a fish tank package.

He's had outside employment, Hoffman said, working at a restaurant and a shoe factory. VIP is a good job, he said, and like any workplace, has good and bad days.

"It's whether people are in a good mood or a bad mood," he said.

Wages for the developmentally disabled range from 75 cents an hour to $9 an hour, Wallis said. Each employee is evaluated every six months to determine their productive rates and their pay is set as a percentage of local wages for similar work.

Schmittzehe and Wallis, however, are also paid salaries that some might consider low for the head of a business with $6.7 million in annual revenue. In the reports to the IRS, a portion of Schmittzehe and Wallis's salaries are attributed to each of the four not-for-profits. Schmittzehe's pay was just over $113,000 in the year ending June 30, while Wallis received $111,000.

Asked about his pay, Schmittzehe said: "I am satisfied with what I get. I was offered a job that's way, way more than that. If I was not here and you went out to the marketplace to get somebody to do what I do, it is worth a hell of a lot more than that."

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Life for a sheltered employee at VIP Industries isn't all just about work. The company provides recreation that includes weekly bowling outings, trips to St. Louis for shopping and sporting events, and vacations to Florida and the Carribbean.

"What we do is normalization," Schmittzehe said. "Eighty percent of our people here have been on a jet airplane to go to the Carribbean on a cruise."

He described the change in one sheltered employee who had difficulty communicating before a Florida trip.

"I said, 'Where have you been?' and he said, 'I've been down to Florida,'" Schmittzehe recalled. "'Where,' I asked. 'On a vacation,' he said. 'How come I never get to go?' I asked him. He said that you have to sign up."

Schmittzehe became involved in developmental disability issues after his daughters were born in the 1950s. At that time, schools did not have to accept students diagnosed with mental retardation, a now-discarded term. And even when schools did start providing some education, there was nothing for adults with developmental disabilities.

The Association for Retarded Citizens was formed to advocate for services and recognition. In the most recent fiscal year, it had $763,866 in revenue, $279,797 in expenses and $3.2 million in reserves, according to IRS filings.

"That's the grandfather of the whole situation," Schmittzehe said. "We are about to go into some day programs, and they will finance that and you can't start with an empty basket."

Schmittzehe's daughters are deceased. At an age when many people have long since retired to spend their time traveling or pursue other interests, he remains on the job and committed to VIP's mission and its future.

"How would you like to go to bed at night and put your head on a pillow knowing that everything is on a shoestring and the whole thing could collapse? The hospitals don't run like that and neither do we," he said. "I have been around the world twice, but no more. I hunted and fished twice a week while I was in the jewelry business. I don't need it anymore.

"You should talk to the people who came and sat at this desk and their tears bounced off this desk and they talked about their kid. We were the only voice for them for years and years, and I know what a parent's fears are."

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent addresses:

5616 U.S. 61, Jackson, Mo.

1330 Southern Expressway, Cape Girardeau, MO