How Atlantic Packaging Built an 80-Year Legacy of Innovation | Rusty Carter, Bill Balkcum, & Wes Carter

Recorded live on stage at Atlantic Packaging's National Sales Meeting, this special episode traces Atlantic Packaging's remarkable 80-year journey from a small-town North Carolina newspaper to a billion-dollar, family-owned leader in sustainable packaging. Host Cory Connors sits down with CEO Rusty Carter, VP Bill Balkcum, and President Wes Carter to unpack the company's origin story, its evolution into packaging, the sales-driven culture that has defined it for decades, and the values the family hopes will carry the business into its next generation.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Rusty Carter's roots in the newspaper business at the Tabor City Tribune, and the "band of brothers" who shaped his early view of hard work and loyalty
• The company's gradual migration from newspapers and office supplies into industrial and institutional distribution
• Bill Balkcum's early career at Dillard Paper Company and his first encounters with Rusty as a competitor
• The 1980 move to Wilmington, the acquisition of Crown Box, and Atlantic's pivotal shift toward packaging
• The rise of stretch film, garment film, and linear low-density film in the 1980s packaging boom
• Competing against industry giant Dillard Paper Company and using innovation and differentiation to win business
• Building a value-added business through die cutting, converting, and printing capabilities
• The transformational 1999 Henley acquisition and its role in creating a true regional and eventually national footprint
• Why Atlantic has remained a sales-driven organization, with leadership staying close to customers
• What Rusty Carter is most proud of: the people, the culture, and passing the torch to the next generation
• The core values guiding Atlantic's future: integrity, honesty, gratitude, and environmental responsibility

Chapters:
 
00:24 Introduction and Legacy of Atlantic Packaging
01:07 Introduction to the Sustainable Packaging Podcast
02:10 Early Days in the Newspaper Business
08:15 Transition to Atlantic Packaging
12:04 Competing in the Packaging Industry
18:21 The Move to Wilmington and Crown Box Acquisition
25:07 Evolution of Packaging and Automation
32:10 Differentiation in the Packaging Market
36:16 The Evolution of Leadership and Sales Culture
43:22 Transformational Acquisitions: The Henley Impact
48:23 Investing in Value-Added Services
59:50 Pride in Legacy and Culture
01:03:23 Core Values for Future Generations

Resources Mentioned:

• Atlantic Packaging History

Contact:

Listeners interested in learning more about Atlantic Packaging can visit atlanticpackaging.com.
Wes Carter - LinkedIn
Atlantic Packaging - LinkedIn
Atlantic Packaging - Linktree

Closing Thoughts:

Rusty and Bill reflect on eight decades of risk-taking, relationships, and reinvention, from hot-type newspaper tables to a national packaging powerhouse, and share why culture, not just growth, is the legacy they're most proud of building.

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Transcript

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it's not about size and scale. it's it's just about the the the evolution and the the ability for ~ a legacy to continue. I'm ~ I'm I'm most proud of the people that have~ been assembled with this organization and and and have become great friends of mine. This very special podcast episode was recorded on stage at the Atlantic Packaging National Sales Meeting in front of a few hundred of our awesome coworkers. I'm so excited as I got to connect with Mr. Rusty Carter, the CEO of Atlantic Packaging, and his longtime partner and VP, Mr. Bill Balkcum Also the president of Atlantic Packaging, Mr. Wes Carter, joins us as we discuss the amazing 80 years of history of Atlantic Packaging. This family owned packaging company has grown to be a billion dollar company and And a true leader in the world of sustainable packaging. Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any episodes. Welcome to the Sustainable Packaging Podcast with Corey Connors, presented by Atlantic Packaging. What an honor to say that. I'm your host, Corey Connors, and today my co-host is Mr. West Carter. ~ I'm so excited and honored to be on this stage.~ thirty years in this industry has led me to what I think is the pinnacle of my career working with the top team in this industry. So a round of applause for yourselves. First, congratulations on Atlantic's eightieth year in business. What a what an incredible legacy you've built and what a team y~ that's honored to be a part of this group here. I know everyone in this room is just excited to be a part of it and ~ we couldn't be happier. So thank you. Rusty, let's start at the beginning. You grew up in the newspaper business with your father. What were the early days at the Tabor City Tribune like? Well, I was only twelve when it started and so ~ eighty plus twelve. every and let me I'll I'll back up a little bit. It's ~ everyone I've seen this morning talked about me falling off of this mustache last night. Did any of y'all really f think I was gonna fall off that thing? No way. I mean I I took all this crowd on the cattle drive one time. No yeah, one guy did fall off. He did, broke his collarbone. You're right. Anyway, there gonna be some ~ slides that come along with this and it's th some of them are the worst pictures you ever saw, but we ~ pulled some things together and I I did absolutely grow up in the business and ~ under ~ my my father's ~ print shop ~ tables and back back in those days you you everything was done with metal hot what they call hot type and you had big tables where you made up the pages and as you can see the first location we had was right there where my dad's walking in the door. But one of the things I remember most, take a little aside, is right next door ~ was Doc's pool room. And that's Doc right there. And Hot d hot dogs three for a quarter. It was pretty cool. And ~ in the back they had the pool hall where they bootlegged alcohol and beer, so you had to be sixteen to get in the back. So rarely did I get to the back room and when I did my father came and got me. But ~ so g growing up there in that small town~ w was really pretty special. my mom and dad showed up in forty six right out of the right out of the The Navy and ~ you you know a lot of the other story and my mom probably doesn't get enough credit ~ for what she did in those days. Everybody talks about my dad. And in case y'all don't know out there, I'm a crier, so if you know you if I choke up a little bit through this, hey, just hang in there, we'll be okay. But ~ they ~ they started this little newspaper, just the two of My dad did a writing and she did the addressing. the newspapers to go out in the mail and and whatever bookwork that was. But the one thing I think that's most important and it's gonna show up here in a slide is ~ my dad assembled ~ some old beat up equipment and~ and a a group of ~ young men and a couple women, my mother and and my father's sister, and ~ started that newspaper. And if you hit a slide there, you'll see this group group standing out front. Yeah, we the Pulits are there, they are right there. And if there's ~ one slide in this whole presentation that depicts who we are and where we came from and and the the culture that I hope still exists today is that one that's at least on my left here.~ that was in the sixties. ~ I was around there ~ in high school working, but the best way I can describe this, i it was a band of brothers.~ including like I said, my mom and my aunt and one other lady, I they were probably inside doing all the work when this picture was made. But this group of ~ hard working veterans, gentlemen, very few of had more than a high school education, if any of ~ work together as a team to put out this little newspaper week after week. You wouldn't think it would take that many people. But ~ a couple and a couple of them are still with us.~ I see Gail Hammond there and I see ~ a couple more who are still still there. But I I got to to know this group very well as a as a child and and I hung around there and sold newspapers and swept the floor and did whatever but The the the story I remember best is one of those guys named JT Harrelson and I was really a kid at this time, like six or seven, and I was underneath one of those tables one day and I turned over something he was working on and he looked at me and said, Son, you're a P E S T And I said, I ran up to the front to see my dad and I said, What is a P E S T? And he broke out laughing and kind of from then on it's ~ was the story. But the the band of brothers that were there were a great bunch of hard working guys. And the picture on the right shows that my dad also was always in the outdoors. He would close the business sometimes on Wednes once a year on Wednesdays when the paper came out, load everybody up in cars, drive to Florida. and f and rent rooms in a fish camp and they would all fish for three days and turn around and drive back. And so that set a tone of, you know, appreciation for the people that ~ actually made things happen. And there you can see some old equipment. That's the newspaper. those are line of type that were the ~ and I got to know all this band of brothers and they were practical jokers, they were hard workers and ~ it it ~ it probably had more impact on me than anything else related to the start of of of Atlantic but I didn't know it at the time. So ~ that's that's the beginning and ~ I did sell papers for a nickel apiece on the street and ~ the commission rate was really good, fifty percent. Not bad. Well done. Thank you, sir. It's incredible history. It's really impressive. When you joined Atlantic in the nineteen seventies, did you already see a future where ~ we would be involved in packaging? Is that something that you had in your thoughts? Well, you're looking at the first warehouse we had and back up that slide, that our warehouse was upstairs. That was a there was a business on the bottom floor. And my dad started getting into some supply business ~ as a way to make a Actually, we sold we first sold office supplies as part of this little newspaper deal. And there's a long story about how we got into other products, but that was the first warehouse. It was right across the street from where we did the newspaper. And anytime you guys want to sign on to an upstairs warehouse that the only access is up a flight of stairs,~ I'd be glad to to take you and give you that lesson. But we we would unload rail cars of toilet tissue and towels and stuff in a pickup truck and carry every box up the stairs. And when we loaded them out for delivery, we'd carry every box down the stairs. And the best story I can tell you about the culture of my father and how he was ~ was customer focused, we got an inquiry one day then when we were doing a little bit of industrial stuff and somebody wanted sheets of craft paper. And ~ he looked at me and said, You know, we don't have any sheets of craft paper, do we? And I was in high school. And I said, No, sir, we only have rolls. And they're in the upstairs over there. He walked over to his desk and he handed me a pair of scissors.~ And he said, We'll have sheets this afternoon, get over there. And so sure enough, Roll it out and cut it, roll it out and cut it. So the customer got sheets the next day. So that's the kind of guy he was. And ~ he was gonna respond to the the need and he was ~ he was in this thing ~ as part of his D and A to move forward and and be successful, but it was really about making a living for his family. And ~ little newspapers d all have gone out of business these days'cause they can't survive and they had t tough time surviving then. But his passion was journalism. His passion was, you know, f ~ being on he loved a crusade. He loved a fight. And ~ I inherited a little bit of that.~ I've been keeping up with the Carolina stuff lately. But ~ anyway it's ~ it it was a great history. We moved we became Atlantic publishing and paper company. along the way b as we did more paper. a lot of our activity was in institutional papers. You see the South of the Border thing. South of the border was a big deal back then and my father was close friends with the owner. And ~ and and you ask when we were in packaging. It was it it was a long time before we were in packaging. We sold ~ these were called amenities. We sold shampoo and soap and chemicals and every you know, God knows~ what we all sold and we had printing presses that as you can see there on the left ~ and I'll sum this up and say because we could put ink on paper and print a newspaper it allowed us to put ink on lots of other things just like we do today and it was a direct migration from printing a newspaper. And then the supply business we'll talk about later evolved as the as the community marketplace evolved. And ~ this next slide pertains to the the Balcom Carter merger. Well said. Thank you, sir. Bill, you actually knew Rusty as a competitor before you worked together.~ can you tell us a little bit about your start in the packaging industry and what it w what was it like competing with Rusty out there in the marketplace back then? Good question. ~ I really didn't know Rusty. I started with Diller Paper Company in ~ I guess in the early seventies and ~ Diller Paper Company was the the supply distribution ~ company in in in the southeast and particularly in North Carolina since they were headquartered out of Greensboro, North Carolina. And back in those days,~ textiles and garments ~ were were the big deal. particularly in in North and South Carolina. And and you know, in my early days I you know, I sold printing papers with Dillard and then I I I got into the to the garment industry and shirts,~ socks, underwear,~ and they became large customers for me and and for Dillard Paper Company. And ~ my first recollection of of Rusty, who I didn't know, was in I think in nineteen seventy eight.~ I walked into one of my very good customers in ~ shirt manufacturer in North Carolina, and went back to plants ~ plant manager's office. Walked in, he had this bulletin board up. And there was this nice letter head or letter up up on the on the wall and he he pointed up at it, said you need to read that. And you know, Rusty's very good at writing letters, if anybody knows Rusty Carter. And Anyway, I looked at that thing. I said about professional. I mean the the the the the paper was very professional, the letter was written very professional. He says, You know, I like this guy. I said, Well, Frank, I said, Who is he? What does he do? He said, Well, you can sell everything you can sell. I said, Really? I said, Well, you're not gonna buy anything from him, are you? I don't know. I said, Frank, you know, come on. Anyway, I left there. And I said I got to thinking, I says, who is Rusty Carter? And you know, if if he's in that little town in Garland, North Carolina, he's gonna be in other places too. So I I took it upon myself to drive to Tabor City, North Carolina, and check him out. He didn't know this, he didn't know this now. But I I drove over to Tabor City, it was on Saturday morning, and ~ nice building, had he had these nice white trucks like new, all lined up. perfectly in front of the building. And I said, hmm, that that's that's pretty professional. And ~ so anyway I that that was in I think seventy eight. And ~ you know from that point he showed up in a couple of other good accounts. And so I I got I got really concerned about him. And I'm not sure r really when we first started talking. Diller was in transition at the time and I was I was you know, one of their good sales guys. And ~ Dillard was a y you know, everybody wanted to go to work for Dillard if you were in sales. And but they were changing and I think I was the first one that they ever started reaching in my pocket. And and so that that concerned me. As I grew the business they wanted to take some back from me. And so that that that and and all of you know is in sales you you know that that's that's that's concerning company does that to you. Anyway, I I was disgruntled. and ~ I think somewhere along the way Rusty and I got connected with a another gentleman in Wilmington, North Carolina. ~ he owned a company called Crown Box. And ~ from that point ~ this guy named Harry Crayley knew Rusty and that's I think that's how we got got connected and started talking. Well let's back up a minute. They talked about they asked about competing on the street. And you know who won that war. I I don't think you ever got a war from me. I you know, I don't recall one. As y'all notice in those slides there, there was one guy in the office and one guy on the golf court. One guy on the golf court. That that's called planning but I'll have to be honest, we're gonna tell some truth here today. If it was a female or lady in the buying or anything, I had no chance. You know. Smoothest guy you ever met in your life. And ~ and pretty damn good. And but we had some capabilities he didn't have when it got into this textile business. And ~ I scared the hell out of him. That's all there was to it. But in Tabor City, the closest large town was Wilmington, where Bill and ~ Dillard had a a location there. And a lot Bill and his crowd, they also had two or three boats. They had an apartment. They had a houseboat down at the entertainment. They had a house at Figure Eight. And you know, it was a little tough environment to compete, you know, 'cause they they were big into entertainment and all this stuff. And hell We didn't even have a golf course in Tabor City, let alone any way to entertain anybody. But ~ Bill and I knocked heads around ~ that market for a while but and we had a really tough time competing in Wilmington with Balcombe and the accounts in Wilmington from Tabor City. It was just hard. And ~ I thought I could do it but it was it and and we chipped away in and in the perimeter but You know, as he is today, Bill Balkan's best damn salesman ever was. And or pretty damn close, Pat. And and ~ it's ~ we we had ~ we were never very adversarial. We ~ we we did knock head some and like he said,~ along the way I got a phone call ~ and he drove up to Tabor City and we we've got another story I think to tell after that. Yeah, that's perfect segue, thank you. Could we talk about the move to Wilmington and the acquisition of Crown Box in the eighties? Was that when you felt like Atlantic truly pivoted towards packaging?~ yeah. I left ~ Diller Paper in in in the March in in nineteen eighty after talking with Rusty ~ several times. I've I I I never committed ~ like Rafferty did and two or three times, but I mean we we You backed out once. Once and that was not because of Rusty Carter, let me clarify that. It was the other gentleman that was involved at the time. And ~ that that was the principal in in ~ Crown Box.~ but I you know again I I I was disgruntled at Dillard. I mean, you know, they they ⁓ they had packaging and then they had towels toilet paper, janitorial. in my opinion they were focusing more on the that side of the business than they were packaging. And packaging was was taken you know, it's the evolution of packaging really started in the late seventies and and then into the eighties. And ~ I I I you know When Rusty I talked, I said, you know, I yeah, I want to sell packaging. And and and that ~ what they were doing in Tabor City, particularly with all the the the garment industry, textile industry, it all kind of fit. I mean the a lot of the business that that that I had, Rusty had, and then the Crown Box Company had, I mean you we felt like we put them together, we had a winner. And ~ it turned out that was true for a while, and then the market changed. Yeah, at the time Atlantic was f w the Myrtle Beach market was was growing rapidly and we were just as involved or more involved in institutional ~ distribution than we were industrial attribution. We had ~ my father was involved in a lot of in in his newspaper outreach. He was involved in a lot of industrial recruiting. So he was he he ~ he helped bring at that point largely textile companies out of the northeast who were running from labor unions. the the small towns in in the in our region. And every we talked about last night, there wasn't a small town in North and South Carolina that didn't have at least one sew in or garment textile plant. They were everywhere. ~ shirts, underwear, ladies' slacks, ~ and so my father's relationship with those owners of those companies allowed him to say, well, why are you bringing your pens and pencils and legal pads from New York, we can sell here 'cause we were in the off supply business. And then it went, why are you bringing clothes hangers from New York? And why are you bringing garment films from New York and boxes and whatever? And that's sort of how we die and we had the the converting and the die cutting. We converted some printing presses to die cutters and for years we cut scallions of collar strips and the ~ shirtboards and then undergarments all of them have still have piece of cardboard in it and so we were in that side of the business which Bill couldn't compete in because he didn't have the the value added piece. And I didn't really know what he meant when he said packaging, that he wanted to move toward packaging. Packaging and and what it really wound up being was thousand yard tape and a three taper,~ Stanley strapping and a strapper and shrink film if you could figure out a source. But we hadn't quite gotten to this yet, but ~ there were powerful forces in Diller Paper Company who had the best people in the industry. We got a bunch of in here. I I have nothing to s but good things to say about our number one competitor through all my history is Diller Paper Company. And we got a lot of out there, but there was no better organization in the southeast ~ in in our business in Dillard led led by the Dillard family. I mean they were they were awesome and they blocked us at every corner, at every pass. And you know Excuse me. It pissed me off, you know. I I mean, damn it. ~ we they just they were powerful with the vendors and we would have vendors set us up and two weeks later they would come take the line back. ~ Diller Diller was just incredible and ~ and we really modeled who we are after that. So back to the packaging question. Bill introduced packaging to this company as we know it today, and it was I'll let Bill pick up. This the whole stretch film thing~ evolved ~ in the in the universe ~ shortly after Bill joined us and ~ there we were two companies for a while. We we we were crowned packaging and Atlantic. We didn't they were they operated as separate companies for a while. But one in Wilmington and one in Tabor City and that thing there talks it on down the road where we talked about a merger, but Bill you may want to go into some of those. Interestingly enough, I w when I grew up I rem I mean, Dad's company was Crown Packaging. That was the name of my T ball team. So we I we were how long were we Crown Packaging before you made that migration?~ eight or ten years? Eight or ten years. We did this deal in nineteen eighty and ~ and then we merged about ten years later. And So but but the the evolution of packaging which Bill ~ really led along with a gentleman named Ralph Freeman who came with Bill and Ralph's not with us anymore, but but Ralph was a incredibly ~ dysfunctional, talented guy. And he he could get an order and he was a shrink film specialist and and but we didn't have a shrink film, so that didn't work out so well. But The the the stretch film evolution is really pretty cool story. Yeah, I I I'll echo what you said about Dillard Paper Company. When we s started in April nineteen eighty, I I was the first sales guy to ever leave Dillard. And ~ my colleagues at Dillard called me and said, Have you lost your mind? And I said, I don't think so. And ~ anyway I they th th from that point corporate Dillard personal vendetta make sure that we did not succeed. They called every supplier that that they had any relationship with and they were po very powerful in in ~ in in the southeast and very powerful in North And so at every turn, you know, we got the door slammed on us. But through perseverance and and you know we we started. And again the evolution of packaging was was beginning. stretch film was beginning and that was linear low density films came on on stream out of the low density polyethylenes and and the PVCs. So the we we we were able to get ~ equipment lines but the again we got slammed the door on with when any time we tried to get stretch film and Dillard I mean Mobile Chemical Company owned the stretch film market during those days. And ~ and you know it was a company called Borden Borden Chemical was getting into it. They made PVC. And so we we in in defense and trying to to compete with Dullard, we took PVC and tried to compete with linear low density films. we even had heated rollers,~ Chip Benny, I don't know if you heated rollers on a stretch wrapper in order to to stretch the PVC comparable to the the to the linear low density films. And and that was a challenge. But I mean we you know we kept pushing and and digging and you know again the the the garment industry the the the business that Rusty had and I had and then Crown Box, I mean we were able to put it all together. The customers that I had at Diller Paper Company followed me, which was ~ you know a blessing.~ it's it's a lot more difficult today, but I mean it that that that was th that was the turning point.~ But you know, before that, I mean I I sold all kinds of printed products, you know, bags to the shirt guys. And but I mean, yeah, in those days, strapping, steel strapping and pop plastic strapping was the was a standard for palletizing. And ~ some guy f found a a PVC wrap that you use in your kitchen and started wrapping it around. That's how so much that's how it got got started. And anyway it it it evolved from that ~ you know to to where it is today. I mean, I I think we were Primarily I mean we struggled but but we persevered ~ t to to maintain and all the time getting beat down by by Dillard. But ~ I think we won. We did and a l a lot of garments were shipped on hangers in those days from the manufacturer to the store. And they had a they had plastic film over it just like you get it in the laundry today. And so Garment film was a big part of what Bill and I sold to these people and it was made by Mobile. And and Mobile we were a huge customer or a good customer when we weren't huge anywhere.~ and so they had this they had the stretch film deal, but they wouldn't give us air in a jug on stretch film. Strangely enough, there was a ~ a man named Gailey, related to a man in here named Gailey, who who represented Rex Plastics up in Thomasville and they introduced stretch And Evan, strangely enough, was a ~ the the elder ~ Gailey here, ~ he he started talking to us about film and somehow he had the national North American distributorship for a company in Montreal named Mueller who made rappers. And that company is now Wolftech. And that thread is followed all the way through ~ Atlantic to where we are today, strangely enough. But and they were starting to introduce ~ powered wrappers. The wrappers Bill and I are talking about in the days of PVC were fifty inch tall walk around wrapped. You had to put a fifty inch roll of film and walk it around the pallet. And and that was the introduction of stretch film and ~ Chip, we've come a long damn way. And ~ and and you guys selling it. But it was ~ I'm not paying much attention to the time here but we probably ~ but but that that started and and we were we had a very difficult time and I'll tell one little story here about going after Dillard. One day in Tabor City two truckloads of water activated tape showed up at our dock and it's like, hm, we never ordered that much of anything. And It was an order from Dillard Paper Company.~ we we sold this tape product but on a little and it was supposed to go to one of their customers, which was a toy company. And we found out it went to the wrong place. Well I got in my car and I followed those trucks. a after it got redirected to Rocky Mount.~ and ~ and and those are the kind of battles we had to fight 'cause it was called padlocker at the time. And, you know, they just would not not deal with us but we ~ we did we did steal an order on that deal. I want to say one thing. I mean in in order to compete with Diller but since they they were after us at every turn we figured out you know we we had to we had to be different. We had to sell value. And ~ so that's you know that that that's that's kind of where it all started. ~ Again linear low density films were coming on board in the in the early 80s and you down gauge linear low as compared to to to~ to low density and ~ so that that's that's where the w the world of EQ came in. You know if you're buying a three mil low density you could buy a two and a quarter mil linear low density and have the same film properties.~ so that's ~ that's what we that's what we tried to do and still do today is ~ is beat the competition by innovation And and and by being different. And I I think everyone in this room will you done with other companies. I mean, we are a different organization than our competitors for sure. And that leads into my next question too. You guys have always talked a lot about differentiation. And the Atlantic packaging of today is certainly differentiated in the It sounds like in the early days that differentiate differentiation was already real really well established as a sort of blend of value add. and distribution. But ~ the once you you started to engage in the equipment business, was there a real conscious pivot point that said automation equipment is going to be a big differentiator in our industry and this is something that we should cautiously invest in and and try to create? Yeah, there's there's there's little doubt that ~ that that we started seeing the need for this and and there was one guy out on the street with Dillard Paper Company that that that that was ~ a counterpart to myself and Bill, and his name was Ed Turlington. Ed Turlington was a sales guy for Dillard out of Greensboro for a long time and he ultimately became their ~ packaging guru specialist and there he is. in the in the early days. And ~ I'm not sure it was later when we ~ but but they l Dillard and I'm we've probably talking too much about Dillard, but Dillard launched a packaging program way ahead of everybody else with specialists and technicians and that kind of stuff. And they had again they had all the premier lines. But ~ you know, it's like Michael Jordan, you know, be like Mike. I mean, damn, we wanted to be like Dillard, I'm telling you. And ~ and and none of the other people that you hear about now much in the marketplace were even on our radar. I mean it was we keep in mind we were east of ninety five. I mean that we didn't have any business across ninety five. It was all in all these little rural areas up and down. And we had two locations. We were in Wilmington and and in Tabor City. I d we didn't say that crown packaging, crown box made setup boxes, but because there were There was there was a need for shirtboards and it was a tie manufacturer in Wilmington, France Neckware. They also had die cutters like we had. And so they supplied that Wilmington market. And so we were we were friendly competitors with Crown when we ~ put a deal together with a gentleman named Harry Crayley ~ and and took over Crown And that that merged all our our textile die cutting business ~ The two two of us competed head to head and that brought all that together. And to to Wes's question there,~ we were always trying to sell additional products that our competitors didn't have. They they did not have the ability to produce inserts and I mean they could buy it somewhere, but our our printing capability is limited as it was in those days and our converting capability really set us apart in the ~ textile business. And textiles were not terribly automated, Bill. I mean it ~ the automation came when we reached up into places like Fayetteville, big cities. And there was a company called Western Publishing. Western Publishing and Fayetteville at the time made children's games. If you remember Trivia Pursuit, most of you not old enough, it hit like Pokemon, man. and trivial pursuit exploded and we ha we were in Western Publishers door and that account probably drove automation more than any other account we had until we stumbled in to a young man I saw up here a little later. That guy on the in the middle there, the old gray mayor was not always the old gray mayor. In case you don't know, that's Pat Cacavillon's thing. А Пет Ауса Найнісикс. Yeah. Shrink packaging had a location up in Winston Salem or somewhere where they were chasing the Schuford business and led by the gentleman in the middle and two other people, Randy Franklin worked for us, they were losing money hand over fist, led by that group. And so ~ they wanted they wanted to get out. And so I had talked to Pat for hours on the telephone a couple of years before. When a gentleman named Matt Green who came out of the the Mueller connection to us and Pat I mean Mac really led our stretch film program. I'd I'd be ~ out of line not to mention Matt. I mentioned ~ Mac who passed away a few years ago, great guy that did wonders for us. and ~ we reconnected and really automation and and packaging took a big step forward with ~ with the acquisition of of SPS as location there. And this gentleman at on my left here was strong enough and good enough and committed enough that he packed up his family and moved to Winston-Salem to help us launch that. And that was the first time we had a location west of 95. Atlantic has always been a sales driven organization and I think it's obvious listening to you guys talk that that that was embedded just in the leadership at the time. But Can you talk a little bit about how being a sales-focused organization really defined the culture and evolved the organization to where it is today? As we all know, I mean, being a sales-driven ~ organization is fundamental to who we are today. Can you just talk a little bit about that evolution and also who were some of the key leaders in the 90s and early 2000s who continued to advance that sales culture? we i over the years we've been very fortunate, very blessed to to have people come join our our company ~ at the right time with the right skill sets. And y ~ one of the things you heard Rusty say this last night, we ~ to to emphasize that we are a sales organization. To this day I still sell customers. I have customer relationships. Rusty Carter does. And I think that's what makes us totally different than our competition. They have layers of management, sales managers, another manager, and then you know and up. They ain't got a frickin' clue what goes on on the street. And ~ and that that that truly makes us different. after the the ~ Henley acquisition in nineteen ninety nine, July ninety-nine,~ we we we inherited a lot of great salespeople and ~ and a a lot of a lot of inside great people and and from that point ~ it it it it just blew. I mean we it gave us coverage total coverage in North in South Carolina and and and and ~ that's when Dillard started shaking and and w we we were we were no longer shaking. And so ~ the these two guys right here I think came on board. Jim Friesinger who's who's retired now and that guy on the right, I'm not sure who he is. He's that kid. Yeah he he was a pure child when he came to work for us right out of Davison College. But ~ once again, key people at the right time that have that have molded this organization and and continue to do. A lot of y you folks in here are new and you you will you know, you're you're coming behind us to put your footprint on it. Yeah, and I I I as I said, I grew up in this tiny little town and this tiny tiny little town had Friday night football. Okay. Friday night football in little town is everything, it's competitive as hell. You know, so a a lot of being ab ~ driving a sales or about the culture of a sales organization, it's just about competition. I mean some of it's about the math. You gotta have you gotta sell something to pay something. But, you know Bill's competitive, I was competitive, we don't like lose, don't like say no, there's a whole bunch of that out there. And it ~ and I and we have said a lot about Dillard, but I tell you what, when you're up against a giant and you determine to win, it puts it it creates a lot of drive. And I it's ~ i that ~ that had a lot to do with this but we there was a slide here we we jumped out one time ~ and like hired five guys at one time and put them all around our region. None of them are still here. ~ but we ~ we were blessed with some really Talented folks. Jeff Cersei is in that picture there on of the Zellebach deal. Jeff was a customer service person at Virginia Paper for us, the best one I ever knew. And he came to Wilmington on the inside to manage the chaos that Bill and Ralph created because they were salespeople. They were not management people. And Jeff was a big step in ~ organi helping organize our efforts so that we could really be. sales focused. And it's like I said ~ last night and I'll repeat, you know, we for the longest time and still today pretty much, we want management people to have some account responsibility because if you don't watch out, your manager tries to tell you how to sell sell from his office. And that doesn't work very well. And we've never allowed that culture to develop in Atlantic.~ as you know, our our our senior leadership folks are all connected. And I think that's the key to being a sales organization. It has to drive be driven from the top. All right. Well Yeah, touch on that real quickly though. I mean the Henley acquisition in 1999 was transformational for the organization. quickly, can you just discuss that acquisition and how that did change and catapulted us into being ~ more than just a a regional organization? I'll let Bill start it and I'll try to wrap up on it. As I said earlier, Dillard Paper Company was the was the kingpin. And then Henley had their they were they were probably a a strong competitor in in the western part of the state.~ They had locations in similar cities to to to Dillard. And the the ownership, A B hen not A B but Mr. Henley, health was declining and ~ make a long story short, we ended up acquiring ~ Henley in in ~ nine n July nineteen ninety nine. And that ~ everybody thought that the that was the the net that follow that swallowed the elephant, but in reality we were kind of a sleeper down in Wilmington on the coast. We were we were pretty equal in sales volume. And with that that that ~ acquisition, it we became the the the real force in the Carolinas. Mm-hmm and it kind of catapulted from there to you know to where we are today. Okay. Great. Yeah, it it it it clearly is the sing we we talk about our national footprint okay? Without this handler organization that launched us into a regional we would never have a national footprint, I don't think. And we talk about people we we ~ we were about sixty million dollars in nineteen ninety-nine, believe that. They were about sixty million dollars. I was terrified. We're gonna buy no back it up. I was anxious. It ~ that we're gonna actually acquire somebody who's as big as we are. And I rem I remember driving in my driveway with~ Roger Teague and I s and and I was I was interested in this. I said, Roger I changed my mind. Do not let Balcom and them guys talk me into this. Okay. Don't let these sales guys talk me into buying this thing. It it's just it's too big a bite. And ~ but the financial guy, he was all about backing out, you know. So but you know, slept on it and and we did it and we talk about people, the acquisition of Henley, and there's some folks in here.~ broad A really, really high quality group of individuals to Atlantic, many of whom stayed. And I'll flip back to the sales organization piece. The night after we bought Henley, we had a meeting in Greensboro of all the salespeople and all the ~ internal support people. And to differentiate culture, though I've got a lot of respect for the for A B and the Henleys. As we would say something about the Salesforce, they would cheer. As we would say something about control, the inside people would cheer. I mean, it it was like two opposing forces. Well, the Salesforce won that battle and ~ and it it it really changed who we were, we got great assets, we got great people, we got some more product lines. And it was the launch of the company you see today, there's no doubt about it. It was it was the turning point because it was big. I mean, when you acquire somebody as large as you are, I don't care how big you are and and it gave us great strategic~ footprint and great people. Last thing on that. ~ A. B. Henley was a wonderful guy. A B. Henley did not want to run a packaging company. And he reached out to us because he knew who we are were and we were family people and he was a family company. And I have to give A. B. Henley a a lot of lot of kudos for Believing that Atlantic could take his company and protect it. And ~ and it it was his father was dying when all this was happening. And ~ I I tell this story. He told me I had to he had to take me by his home to meet his father before he could say yes, because his father had to pass on me. So I I went and visited with his dad in his home, and next day he said, well. You did all right. My father thinks he he likes you okay and we can go forward. But he it wasn't a grand endorsement, but it was good enough. I love that. Rusty, y we talk a lot today about the real strength of Atlantic is this hybrid this blend of value add and distribution and technical selling. And ~ you know, hearing the history, it's obvious that that hybrid structure was sort of embedded from the very beginning. But ~ from your perspective, what were some of the most important investments that Atlantic has made over the years in the value added side of our business that allowed us to To grow and flourish in this hybrid model? Yeah, it it ~ it was like it's follow the string. I mean it's ~ that textile business and and again goes back to our ability to put ink on paper and have presses and cutters and you know that insert business, that ~ die cut business. gave us a value added piece and our primitive little printing company that do anything very well, that sure as hell couldn't do that,~ It gave us another little end. If it was nothing more than printing people's envelopes and letterheads and business cards it and it gave us a ~ I don't know how calculated it was, but it it gave us something to sell that the competition didn't have to sell. You know, it was a whole nother group of people trying to sell that stuff. And so it was a evolution of following the customer and f customers' needs and following the market. And ~ our our investment in I'll just say some just die cutting if nothing else, converting printing presses to die cutters. And we did that in the early days. Took out the ink rollers, put in cutting rules, and we use the same presses to cut bo paperboard as we did to print. And we got a hundred million dollar business in air filter frames these days is nothing more than a die cutter. And it it it is just seeing opportunity, seizing on opportunity, being really being willing to risk the whole damn company on borrowing money to s think you think this is a good idea. And it's we've run this company, I hate to say it, Nick, ~ we've run this company by intuition a long damn time. And I didn't know what ROI stood for for most of my life. And it just we we followed I mean, I it it stood for Rusty something,~ Rusty's own intuition. But that's pretty good. Now we have subsequently gotten very exotic and very sexy in our value added business and the things we can do. And ~ and it's still ~ it's still a differentiator. I mean th some of y'all figured it out, some of of the ones of you that on the high earning side figured it out and some of the rest of you will figure it out.~ that ~ we're not everything to everybody. We do and I like to say we do A lot of a little. We don't do a lot of a lot, because that's somebody else's game. But to Wes's point, our investment in printing presses, die cutters, and combination thereof, and more recently in the lamination business are strictly listening to the market, listening to the customers, and believing that there's a There's a a ~ opportunity for us there. And ~ we've had some failures, no doubt, but for the most part,~ watching the market, listen to the customers, and damn, just being willing to take risk and I mean that you couldn't write that in a book, nobody would believe it, but you gotta be willing to take risk and and we we are sure as hell taking some along the way. I want to add something to that. this guy's never backed up. I'd bring him something and say, customer gave me, said, can you do this? I said, well, we can't right now, but let me let me go look. I could sit down with Rusty. He said, that's gonna require three or four hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment to do that. He said, okay, we'll do that. And ~ that's how ki how it kinda went, you know. It one after the other and it just exploded from that. But in the early day Rusty Carter has never backed up from an investment ~ in this company. And ~ you know on the value-added side, that's ~ that's all rusty. Everything you see in Tabor City and and Greensboro and all these other locations.~ that we have a huge amount of investment in in equipment and people. That's Rusty Carter. ⁓ And ~ he has a passion for it ⁓ and~ it's the blend of of packaging and that value added has has been a a blessing to this company ⁓ and it's who we are ⁓ and~ why we're so good in the marketplace.⁓ I have had to move two or three times during my career because the banker would in on the same street and buy a house next door. So he wanted to keep an eye on me to be sure I didn't leave town. So I've I've had to relocate a number of times. If there were some other people that ~ real quickly that I don't know exactly we are here. Bradfields was a big ~ dish in our company back ~ after some of these acquisitions. Roger T was the first real financial ~ CFO we ever had, Roger brought great value to this company and and brought some discipline that I never had. And ~ and and it's a good thing we found somebody like Roger along the way. There's and ~ and we built out this family that you're seeing in that picture there that includes, you know, spouses and everybody that we've we've blended this and and and one thing that you s we flew by there is ~ we did~ pause or I I paused along the way when we were moving so far. fast and said, you know, team building is damn important. We we can't just all be Jeff Cersei out there doing this and Bradfields doing this and Bill Balcom doing this, Rusty Carter chasing cats and herding cats. And so ~ had this great idea one time that we really had to have a a team building experience. And so ~ I announced that we had a mandatory cattle drive to Wyoming and over Labor Day weekend in about what was it? What year was it? Yeah. And a few of ~ had never seen a horse or petted a horse or been on a And Bill's wife is a horse person and she gave lessons before we went, but it didn't help much. But ~ looking back on it, this this group of us that that spent a ~ a week together with no phones or no that we didn't have cell phones then I don't think, but I won't tell that story. But It was it was a team building experience and ~ not that that single thing~ is is what created ~ the culture. It did not, but it was ~ I did feel a need for team team building back in the day and ~ there we have we have the core group has the the fondest memories you can imagine of spending six days and nights on driving 600 cows. lot of stories there. I I think you actually do have to tell the story about the hurricane coming to Wilmington. All right, here we go. All right. I think a time I don't know how the time's going here, but all right. We were we were about three days into this thing and every night you you would They had places along the w we had to round up the cows for two days and then you had to put in a corral and then w ~ and the the the i this was the real deal. This wasn't city slickers, I'm telling you. The guy looked at us at the first night and kinda rolled his eyes and said, Now why are you guys here? And we said, Well, we wanna do this. Sounds cool. He said, Well, I'll tell you why you're here. I could pay people to come drive these cows. There are cowboys all over Wyoming. Or I can find a bunch of fools like you to pay me to drive these cows. There was there were two cowboys and us and a chuck wagon. Whew, a and ~ slept on the ground every night. But anyway, damn hurricane hit Wilmington on about the fifth day we were there. And we were around the campfire and some guy came riding in on a horse and said, Man, the way aren't y'all from North Carolina?~ there's some Governor Hunt on the on TV saying a hurricane's getting ready to hit his state. What is that ~ Jim Hunt? Yeah, Jim. It's getting ready to hit on the coast of North Carolina. Well, a little panic struck, particularly with Bill, and they had a bag cell phone is all they had. And it didn't have a signal unless you got vertically to the top of a mountain. So we head up to the top of this mountain, Balcom and some of us to find out what the hell is going on in Wilmington. At the time the hurricane was in Wilmington. It didn't land it. So Balcom calls Teresa. We're all standing around there. She's got three trees on the house. She's calm but not so calm. And don't know what to do. ~ The house gonna blow away, da da da da da. And Bill says, Honey, I'll be right there. ⁓ Spoken like a true salesman About three Honey, I'll be right there. He has never lived it down. ⁓ And ~ a couple days later, some of us made it home, but it ~ It ~ and and farmer didn't go home because he lived in the western part of the state. He stayed and branded the calves, which we some of us missed, but it's still it's one of still one of the greatest weeks ever. And there's some of the guys that there's Brad and Roger and Jeff and ~ Jeff fell in love with his horse and we had trouble leaving that and there's Balcom at the top of the mountain saying, Honey, I'll be right there. So anyway, that is the story. This has been incredible. Thank you all.~ Rusty, one one quick question for me.~ what are you most proud of about what you've built here at Atlantic Packaging on a on a national stage and and what are you most excited about for the future? That's a tough question. I mean, I'm I'm certainly proud of ~ the development of the company and you know. It's not all about to me,~ these people that work here aren't just, you know, employees. They ~ we have a relationship and and and those relationships are in many ways the the strongest relationships in my~ I'm certainly proud of ~ the ~ that that gentleman right there. I'm proud of Wes Carter and what he's brought in to this organization and~ the idea that that you can c you can continue ~ legacy, you can span generations without the the trite triteness of what they call dysfunction of of the next generation and trying to ~ move it on. I've there's a picture here somewhere of Scott and Wes and myself. There it is. ~ I'm proud of that and ~ I'm proud of what this ~ the the I'm I'm proud of what we've accomplished, obviously. ~ but I'm I'm mostly proud of the culture that we have managed to maintain and I believe that the next generation of of Wes and Scott and the family ~ have have lived that culture, they've absorbed that culture, they understand it. that culture of those cowboys standing right there is important. That culture of my dad and and eat eating around the table at at a Christmas Oyster Roast ~ is every bit as important as the business we do and the customers we have and the orders we get. No, wait minute, the orders we get are real important. But ~ and I'm I'm proud of of ~ where Wes is leading the company. I ~ watching this and I mean, ~ have I always understood it all? No, but it's a new time. And as Wes has said, you know, he can lead this company, but he can't lead my company. He can lead his company and your company. And I think that's a good thing. That is a really good thing. And ~ So ~ it's the culture that I am probably proudest of, and it's the culture that is the easiest thing to lose. And it's it is ~ it's a daily job of management not to get so focused on process and details and whatever. And lose sight of the culture, lose sight of the people, lose sight of what makes us great. Because what makes us great are the folks I'm looking at and the folks back home that that aren't here enjoying all this. You know, they're ~ every person brings value and we need to remember that every person brings value. And and go back to the band of brothers and sisters. I mean, that established this path and ~ I see no reason it can't continue. You've talked a lot about culture and ~ legacy.~ what what values have mattered most in building this company? And what do you hope the next generation protects and holds dear as Atlantic packaging values? I think I touched on that a bit just a few minutes ago. And if you'll go to that last slide with that guy with his arms crossed there, It~ and Wes touched on it at the beginning here,~ you know, their integrity,~ honesty, you know, ~ fellow fellowship, brotherhood, sisterhood, you know,~ respect for one another, and ~ and and actually ~ some of the the less fuzzy things, you know, like ~ like competition and winning and ~ and being a force in the marketplace and doing it the right way. You know, there's there's lots of ways in this business we're in that that are that are not always the right way. And we've we've stayed out of any of that kind of stuff. And and we believe that you can run a business with ~ integrity, honesty, ~ focus, commitment, and and all of those values that are important to us as people, as important to us as individuals. And and now and and the place we are in the world at the moment, you know, the environmental piece is huge. You know, we have to be sensitive to the impact of industry on on the universe around us. And you know, we've been through a a generation or two of you know, ~ just drive, drive, drive at sorta any expense. I'm not talking about Atlantic, I'm talking about industry in general, and ~ is is brought enormous economic benefit to this country and a l a lot of us in this room. It's also done a lot of damage. And we have responsibility to ~ the world around us, to the people around us. And and I also I I want the ones of us in the lead, which is the are in the front forefront of this that get all the recognition, who have the the higher earnings potential. I don't want us to forget the you know, whatever it is, ~ fifteen hundred people back home. Now you can't do this without them. And and I think one of the other other times I was standing up here, sitting up here, I said, you know, when's the last time you brought donuts to the office sales force? When's the last time you gave truck driver a turkey for Thanksgiving? When's the last time you expressed appreciation? And so ~ appreciation for what we have, who we are, how we got here, and you know, gratitude. I think gratitude is a big piece of the next generation going So those are the values I would say are important. Thank you, sir. A big round of applause for these gentlemen.