Virginia Landaal has strong memories of visiting paper mills as a youngster.Virginia and her sister would attach cotton balls daubed with perfume under their noses to mask the smell of cooking fibers.When he saw this, their father,Norbert Rennicke, cautioned, “You’d better get used to that smell.That’s your bread and butter.” Earlier this fall, the Landaal family marked its 50th anniversary converting that “bread and butter”of brown paper into corrugated boxes. A gala dinner to celebrate the milestone, held at the Flint (Michigan) Institute of Arts, drew 400 people. In 1959, Robert and Virginia Landaal founded Flint Boxmakers, the foundation for what is known today as Landaal Packaging Systems. For most of its history, under the leadership of Robert and his son, Robert Jr., Flint Boxmakers was largely associated with the auto industry. In fact, the company got its start using equipment purchased from A.C. Spark Plugs, which wanted to exit the corrugated business.Robert Landaal Sr.wasn’t sure he wanted to embark on this entrepreneurial journey, but Virginia urged him on.“If you don’t do it, you’ll always wonder what would have happened,”she told him.

Taking Risks

In recent years, however, Landaal Packaging Systems has continued to take risks by focusing on diversifying its product offerings and customer base as well as training its attention on sustainability.“We’ve been a traditional auto-centered organization and we are now shaping our future for the next 50 years,” said company President Steve Landaal. He estimated that autorelated sales, once 80 percent of the company’s business, is now 40 percent.

“They really saw the handwriting on the wall with the auto industry and they began to diversify - getting into things like agriculture, getting into chemicals, getting into food, and their latest project into recycling and materials recovery,” said Tim Herman, CEO of the

Virginia Landaal, front center, and other family members at the gala.