Rogers Packaging Business Keeps Up With Technology

Family owned Stribling Packaging has expanded, improved as brothers-in-law joined business

A box may look like a simple thing to the average consumer, but the folks at Stribling Packaging know that the process involved in developing a container is anything but simple.

Gone are the days when a box was, well, a box.

Nowadays, thanks to technology developed in the last decade, cardboard boxes can be custom-designed for both size and shape and decorated with intricate four-color designs, feats virtually unheard of in the past.

In that regard, larger companies have few advantages over family owned Stribling Packaging, where the owners have devoted most of the past five years to improving their design and manufacturing techniques.

They’ve added new services, as well, to meet the needs of their clients and even created a separate company, CargoNet, to help customers ship their products. These improvements are part of the reason Stribling delivers 8 million SF of corrugated products to customers each month.

“Our business is service-oriented,” says company founder Bill Stribling Sr., who attributes his company’s success to a desire to please customers, no matter the cost.

CargoNet adds to services

One of the things that makes Stribling unique is its tight alliance with CargoNet, a logistics company that is located just across the street. CargoNet founder Kim Campbell not only has some ownership in Stribling but is also a member of the family.

“I have been decent at the job I have done for Stribling Packaging,” says company president Bill Stribling Jr. “But one of the best things I have done is not only brought two brothers-in-law into the company, but two talented brothers-in-law. There is a difference.”

After spending the first part of his career working in sales for athletic shoe companies such as Adidas, Campbell was looking for a change. In 1990, the family convinced him to join Stribling Packaging, where Bill Stribling Jr. says he was an amazing addition to the company. One of his major accomplishments was converting the entire company, from accounting to shipping, to a management information system that now tracks and controls everything.

During his years with Stribling, Campbell had noticed another need in Northwest Arkansas, and in 1996 he decided to form CargoNet.

“You look at the area and the Wal-Mart thing hits you right between the eyes,” says Campbell. “We had the packaging, so it seemed like something we could offer would be the logistics. That seemed like something the vendors would be interested in.”

The initial response was positive, and it has flooded in during the past year.

“We’ve been kind of overwhelmed,” says Campbell. “So our vision was right on. There was obviously a need for this service.” CargoNet is currently adding 100,000-SF to its facility and plans to have the new warehouse open by this fall.

Although the two companies are separate, they still work together as a team.

“The advantage of combining all of these services on one campus [is it] allows for timely execution and makes it easy for buyers and vendors to actively participate in the creative process,” says Patrick Sbarra, Stribling’s sales manager.

Sbarra is the other in-law on the Stribling team. Originally a pharmacist, Sbarra was recruited into radio sales by a friend who was an early believer in sales-as-service. He spent most of his career working for major radio stations across the country, eventually serving as sales manager for KPLX in Dallas.

“I hit 40 and I turned to my wife and said, ‘This is great. We’ve done everything we wanted to do … now what?'” says Sbarra. “I decided I had pursued success. It was now time to pursue significance.”

That Thanksgiving, he and his wife told the Striblings that they were planning to move to Northwest Arkansas, and Sbarra was considering starting his own classic rock radio station. His plans changed when his in-laws persuaded him to join the family business, and Sbarra says he has been excited to be involved in a business going through such pivotal growth.

“We can sit in one room and brainstorm with you, then we can design it and make a sample for you. Then we can manufacture it, we can actually make it .. and then we can distribute it for you,” says Sbarra.

Product innovations

Company founder Bill Stribling Sr. says that, although boxes were being built in the 1980s roughly the same way they were in the 1940s, recent technological advancements have caused the industry to rethink everything, especially design. Stribling Packaging is now able to print complicated four-color designs on corrugated cardboard, something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

To keep up with the changes, Stribling has added a CADD design system that allows the company to create a four-color, 3-dimensional sample in a fraction of the time it took in the past. And Bill Stribling Jr. says this revolutionary change is only the beginning.

“The owner of Eureka Pizza, Rolf Wilkin, everything he does he wants it to be different,” says Sbarra, discussing one of Stribling’s better-known containers. “So he challenged us, and one of our sales people, Tim Barnes, came up with what they call the pizza keeper.”

The pizza keeper is made of thicker cardboard, to keep pizzas warmer, and has special tabs that allow several boxes to be stacked on top of one another, a great feature for a company that usually sells pies in twos or threes. The best part, however, is the pizza keeper tears apart and refolds into a smaller box that is perfect for storing those leftover slices in the refrigerator.

“All in all, we got a pretty nifty box and great service,” says Wilkin, who admits he was initially reluctant to change his design. “Who else would give me the shipping manager’s home phone number, so, if we run out of boxes at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night, we have a way to get more? They [Stribling] are a really fun company to work with, and I don’t think I could say a negative thing about them. “

‘Every father-and-son’s dream’

Things were not always so high-tech. Bill Stribling Sr. discovered the packaging industry in a parking lot. He was playing professional football for the Philadelphia Eagles, and, as he was leaving practice one day, he noticed one of his fellow lineman showing a box sample to a buyer from the back of his car.

“I thought a lot of that guy,” he says. “And after I stopped playing football, I thought, if he can do that, so can I. I got a job with a company in Memphis and this is what I’ve been doing for most of my life. This business kind of grows on you because you don’t run out of things to learn.”

In 1984, he decided to open his own packaging company with his wife and son. He was already living in Northwest Arkansas, and the area seemed like a perfect location.

Stribling started with three employees, father, mother and son. While the Bill Striblings Sr. and Jr. handled most of the sales, delivery and warehouse work, Julia Stribling took care of the office and the day-to-day needs of the business.

“It is probably every father and son’s dream,” says Bill Stribling Jr., who remembers the early days as hectic but exciting. “In the beginning, I might sell it, load it and deliver it all in one. We have the same spirit today: You do whatever it takes to please your customers.”

“We can attribute a lot of our success, at least financially, to my wife, Julia,” says Bill Stribling Sr. “She was not trained in office management, but she took care of our payments. I’m not a finance wizard and I’m not a packaging wizard. I just have good people around me.”

“Since the day we started off with Donny Morgan, we have had good luck,” agrees Bill Stribling Jr.

A former Daisy Manufacturing Company Inc. employee, Morgan was Stribling Packaging’s first official hire.

“I kind of got acquainted with them through church, at First Baptist, you know, and Bill Sr. knew what I did for Daisy,” remembers Morgan, who now serves as the company’s traffic manager. “He came out to the house one night … and we talked some, and it seemed he would make things a lot better for me. So I said ‘Well, Daisy’s a good ol’ girl but I’m not married to her, I guess I’ll go to work for you.'”

Since then, Stribling Packaging has grown from a 3,500-SF building to its current 83,000-SF facility in the Rogers Industrial Park. The company has also added more than 35 employees and recently embarked on a new adventure by adding a satellite warehouse and sales force in Sedalia, Mo.

“We’re proud of where we’ve come from,” says Bill Stribling Sr. “We’ve made some mistakes, but I think our sales force has outsold our mistakes. At least our banker hasn’t seemed concerned.”