MEET MIKE & LARRY
FormPak Inc.
Few people consider what you need to distribute a 2,000 lb. bag of flour in a food processing plant. Mike and Larry do.
For 25 years, these two friends have owned FormPak, Inc. They design, produce and sell machinery to handle bulk bags of everything from sugar to sulfur.
“We have a philosophy of building rugged equipment,” says Larry. “This stuff is going to outlast me for a long, long time.”
The pair met while working in recruitment, but after a short stint in this field, Larry found a better fit with FormPak. At the time, the company was a manufacturer’s representative firm that had been in operation since 1968. When a chance to buy FormPak came along in 1997, Larry brought Mike on board to go into business together. Mike’s sales skills and Larry’s engineering expertise turned FormPak into a manufacturing company. In 1998, they bought a small facility, and by 2003, FormPak was manufacturing equipment only.
“Customers come to us a lot for things they can’t get other people to do. I like being able to solve those issues,” says Larry.
One of the challenges of owning a business is finding employees who fit the work and the culture. Mike and Larry have fostered a team that’s transparent, curious and self-directed.
“We’re building a culture where people feel safe. They have respect for everybody. They feel like they can share their thoughts with upper management and their team members,” says Mike.
The pair are planning the next phase of the business, which includes selling it. Neither Mike nor Larry have children of their own to take over the company, but a big part of its future rests with its employees.
“The responsibility we have here more than anything else is to make sure our employees have something they can carry on with,” says Mike.
Letting go of the business won’t be easy for either of them.
“My plan is to stay around until I can’t,” says Larry. “My life is the business. It’s hard to separate them.”
“I am FormPak,” says Mike. “It’s one of those things where your identity is tied to a company when you put as many years and hours into it. I’m looking forward to that time when I see the people here now build this company even bigger than I was able to do.”
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