S.P. Harris has been sold.
(Tom Croke)
After almost a century in operation, East Providence manufacturer S. P. Harris closed its doors Friday, June 8, eliminating some 70 jobs.
The company, which was located at 55 Pawtucket Avenue and manufactured folding cartons and blister cards was bought, for an undisclosed amount, by Boutwell, Owens & Company in March, which moved Harris’s operations to Boutwell’s headquarters in Fitchburg, Mass. Local company officials said all 70 employees were offered the opportunity to move with the company, but most refused because of the distance.
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“It’s certainly discouraging to see manufacturers like this leave the state,” said John Grady, executive director of the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association.
But for the company’s new owner, the move is anything but discouraging.
“This is two family owned businesses joining forces to get stronger,” said Ward McLaughlin, president of Boutwell Owens & Company. “This is strictly because of how the economy is going, and things seemed to be sliding. We thought we could make better use of our resources by joining together.”
Ken Hatch, former president of S.P. Harris, and now national sales manager for Boutwell said the sale of his third-generation family owned business, was in the works for close to a year before Boutwell entered the picture.
“It’s like an Ann & Hope versus a Wal-Mart type of thing,” he said. “We were basically looking at our size and finding it hard to compete. We were the last remaining company to produce skin folding cartons that was in the $6 to $7 million range; everybody else was in the $20 million range. And with nobody in between it made it difficult to compete.”
For Boutwell, which employs about 160 people, the total purchase of the Harris company was something of a surprise.
“It started out as a merger and ended up as an acquisition strictly for financial purposes,” McLaughlin said. “We had figured that there would be an eventual sale, but we did purchase it outright.”
Hatch said a majority of Harris’ s 70 employees have chosen not to move with the company. But he said many have found work in other sectors of the state’s manufacturing industry.
“They were all offered positions with the new company but many of them, because of the distance, decided not to take the offer,” he said. “We were very diligent in giving them ample notice and they had ample time to find other jobs. Fortunately now, everyone is employed.”
Grady suggested that this latest closing was indeed a disappointing chapter, but not reflective on the industry as a whole – noting for example, the recent opening of a Tiffany’s manufacturing facility in Cumberland. “We have to look at the positives, we have to have balance,” said Grady. “There are some manufacturers moving here because of the good workforce that we have. Yes, we are losing some manufacturers, but we have some coming in and others who already here are expanding.”
Still, Grady said, there is a lesson to be learned.
“It’s crucial that our legislators see that manufacturers like this are leaving,” he said. “They are leaving because we have a lot of tax issues and health care issue. Manufacturers are looking to border states before coming here for those reasons.”
“I was very active, with a number of other companies (in Rhode Island), in working on issues like workers compensation and health insurance,” he said. “I would say that a majority of them are struggling. But I will say it’s a creative group and most everybody is handling the economy the best they can.”
Hatch said the past few years had been difficult ones for Harris, which was founded in 1906.
“In the printing industry, technology and equipment are very expensive and it would have cost us millions of dollars to gear up and get to the point where we could compete,” he said. “About a year ago we had to make the decision on whether or not the company could afford to make the next step. We found that the investment was to great without the assurance of pay back.”
Hatch said it was important that any new partner or owner, share the same principles that Harris had.
“We did a lot of research and found that Boutwell fit well with our philosophies,” he said. “We were definitely attracted to the fact that they were a family run business.”
According to McLaughlin, the two companies are not only compatible, but they have been head to head competitors for almost a century as Boutwell was first opened in 1879.
“We were competitors for years,” he said. “From the times that we started in business, we have been structured the same. We have been running parallel courses that have now been joined.”
For Hatch, who had been running Harris for a quarter of a century, the change hasn’t truly set in yet. But, he said, both he and his employees have known where the company was headed for some time.
“We had made point of informing employees about our thoughts on where the company was going and when we were going to get there,” he said. “After 25 years of having the pressures of running a company, I am welcoming where I am now, but it has still been very difficult.”
