Thanks to a $640,000 loan from the Connecticut Development Authority, the Keystone Paper & Box Co. has doubled its space and continues on its journey to increase its staff.
The growth of Keystone, which began in 1944 making shirt boxes and has occupied a renovated 19th-century mill building in East Windsor, prompted its expansion into a 50,000-square-foot facility in South Windsor.
With business expanding and the old facility becoming a hindrance, owner Jim Rutt said it was a practical decision to move its manufacturing operation to a new space while retaining its former facility for storage.
“The old building is not as efficient. It’s all cut up, has a low ceiling where the new one is a nice, square building,” he said. “The reason for the move was the availability of a building that hadn’t been used in three years. It was a good time and a good fit for our needs.”
Those needs include housing new state-of-the-art equipment that simply wasn’t going to fit easily in the design of the East Windsor facility. In no way, Rutt said, was the move done because of a desire to leave East Windsor, and the old building will remain part of the company’s plans.
“East Windsor’s a great town, as is South Windsor,” he said. “It was just a matter of what we needed to move forward.”
It is a crucial period for Keystone as it has had astounding success in the past several years and the hope is that additional space will keep the company on that path. During the past 50 years, the manufacturer has evolved from focusing on the paperboard folding carton market to making boxes for everything from golf balls to frozen foods. Its expanded focus required the addition of staff. In 2004, Keystone had 45 employees and has about 75 currently. Rutt said the goal is to add another 20, bringing the total near 100, in the next five years.
“We’re an independent printing company, and we’ve picked up where other smaller companies have been struggling,” Rutt said. “For example, we entered a specialty market for beverage carriers and six-pack cartons for microbreweries that opened up.”
At the moment, about 70 percent of the manufacturing equipment and personnel has been moved into the new facility. The full staff should be in place by the end of January while the old building becomes more of a storage facility and warehouse.
The assistance from the CDA was described as a “big help” by Rutt in obtaining a commercial loan. The CDA approved the loan to assist Keystone in its acquisition and improvement of a facility on Edwin Road in South Windsor.
“We were lucky that we borrowed at the time last year because it’s now a lot more difficult, obviously,” he said, referring to the nation’s current credit crisis. “We were in a good position because of our growth, but it was very good to have the CDA involved.”
The CDA is continuously working with chambers of commerce, state agencies and banks to identify companies that could use economic assistance, said Marie O’Brien, CDA president.
“We look at very specific criteria, such as the potential creation of jobs, what type of industry and maintaining jobs in a particular sector,” she said. “We also look at the economic impact of the generation of payroll and taxes for a town.”
Joseph Harpie, CDA Senior Loan Officer, said Keystone was a good fit for the CDA because the loan assisted in expanding their operations and upgrading to a more modern manufacturing facility.
