CEO Today USA Awards

95 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today USAAwards 2018 OHIO Brian Bauerbach President & CEO of Mold-Rite Plastics ® Throughout his career, Brian Bauerbach has worked to implement new business and management strategies within a number of businesses, driving change and success. These provide the foundation for the critical values, vision and essence that guides Mold- rite in delighting customers worldwide to this day. As Vice President of North America Operations at Alcoa Closure Systems International, Brian was responsible for all aspects of eight closure manufacturing locations (1,100 people) located in the US, Mexico, and Costa Rica. He implemented lean manufacturing concepts across all plants, resulting in dramatic improvements in safety, quality, productivity/capacity, and cost performance. As a result of his work, injury rates were cut in half and customer claims reduced by 70% while productivity improved by over 25 percent. Two years later, he began working as General Manager at Alcoa Flexible Packaging, responsible for marketing, sales, and operations for a $270 million flexible packaging business. This business supplies various laminated and printed structures into the food, confection, pharmaceutical, tobacco, and industrial markets. He created a marketing function that segmented each market and developed detailed growth strategies, as well as a focus on new product development efforts. Operationally, scrap rates were reduced, customer claims and delivery performance were improved and productivity increased. Brian then went on to serve as President and CEO of Portola Packaging Inc. Portola Packaging is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of a full line of tamper- evident plastic closures, bottles, and equipment for the beverage and food industries, as well as plastic closures and containers for the cosmetics industry. He joined Portola to lead a turnaround of the company and after just three years, Brian had installed a world-class management team and developed and implemented strategies that doubled the Ebitda of the company. The negative sales trend was reversed and the company was experiencing consistent organic growth as a result of a completely new commercial strategy. At CST Industries, the world leader in bolted steel storage tanks and aluminum geodesic dome covers, Brian served at the helm as President and CEO. During his two years with the company, they completed two key acquisitions and integrated the businesses, with organic growth strategies proving successful at improving the bottom line performance. These experiences have led Brian to where he is now. Since February 2010, Brian Bauerbach has served as the President and CEO of Mold- Rite Plastics, with a plethora of hard-earned experience under his belt. His work experiences in leadership roles, as well as his BAS in Engineering Technology and Management from Ohio University and advanced studies in applied behavioral science at The Leadership Institute of Seattle have enabled him to drive tremendous growth, motivate those he leads, and achieve success. As a company that manufactures essential packaging used across the globe, it’s most likely that you’ve seen and used a Mold- rite Plastics product—most important to them is the focus on delivering trust and value to customers through all aspects of the business, and the culture and values they foster to achieve this. These vital practices range from remaining humble to keeping what’s most important at the forefront of the mind at all times, and this makes them a manufacturer with a difference. It all begins with their belief in critical values. At Mold-Rite, it is not an option to have a culture that is not based on this—values are the core of the organization and they pride themselves on setting the bar high. It starts with the caliber of the people they hire, and continues into the tools and processes they provide in order to engrain the values into shared behaviors and habits. Their people are always highly valued, and therefore, injuries are never accepted in the workplace—safety and wellbeing are held with high importance. Their people must be able to engage completely in their work with clarity of goals and boundaries. Mold-Rite employees bring unique skills and talents and it is key that they are free to contribute fully in their own way while staying within the MRP framework. Integrity, professionalism, honesty, openness, and accountability remain their top traits, which enable them to deliver the highest-quality service available and, above all else, value for their customers is held close to their hearts. As such, they will go to any length to delight them. They value high productivity, so they communicate clearly, and listen even better. In addition, ultimately, they value results and therefore stay focused, engage all people in their mission, take action, acknowledge their failures and celebrate their collective success.