High-tech composite aerospace components are all in a day’s work for Minden company

Picture a military aircraft just a couple of clicks from what you’d see in a Star Wars movie or an advanced communications satellite rocketing into space. These are some of the most advanced technologies in the world today – mind-bogglingcomplex structures of the highest-technology materials, in which every component down to the tiniest rivet has been engineered to the nth degree.

That’s the kind of work they do at Royal Plastic Mfg., Inc. in Minden.

Royal Plastic designs and manufactures advanced composite components for high-performance applications in aerospace, defense, and microwave communications. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and L3 Communications are among the A-list of aerospace and defense companies that purchase engineered composites from this modest Minden facility.

A low-tech beginning

Royal Plastics was established in 1949 by Harley Cole in Minden, Nebraska, which explains its low-tech name in a high-tech world.

Phil Gill, Royal Plastic owner, smiles as he tells the story passed down in company lore how Harley Cole latched onto the first Boeing contract. It seems that several Boeing engineers were fishing at Harlan County Reservoir in the 1950s. Their boat sprung a leak and they learned that a company called Royal Plastic in Minden had the expertise to repair it. Harley Cole fixed the hole in their boat and the Boeing engineers recognized a potential vendor. Boeing, then part of McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis, MO, contracted with Royal Plastic to make composite products for new McDonnell airplanes. A service to a fisherman evolved into the rewarding relationship Boeing and Royal Plastic enjoy today.

In 1978 the Cole family sold Royal Plastics to the M.C. Gill Corporation, a composite manufacturer in Los Angeles making cargo bins, flooring, and liners for the cargo compartments of commercial jets. The M.C. Gill Corporation was previously owned by Phil Gill’s father. The story of how Phil Gill became the owner and CEO of Royal Plastic in Minden teases a smile and a chuckle out of Gill.

“My dad and Harley Cole met at a composite plastic industry meeting, and they were joking with each other about which company was the oldest running company in the composite industry,” said Gill. “When Harley Cole died, his widow remembered their conversation and she called dad and offered to sell the company to him.”

In 1993, Phil Gill, a chemical engineer, acquired Royal Plastics from the M.C. Gill Corporation, moved to south central Nebraska and set about reinventing the company to fulfill his personal vision.

“When I arrived to take over the company, sales were around a half-million dollars,” he said. “The next year, we did over a million-and-a-half dollars, and in fifteen years we are at $10 million.” To achieve the production and financial milestones, Gill said, “We redefined our market from making nonstructural parts to making structural parts for wings and jet engines. We significantly increased the quality of our manufacturing system and our products.”

The employer of choice

Manufacturing processes for the aerospace industry might call to mind an image of hundreds of people working in cavernous spaces amid a clanging, banging industrial din. The exact opposite is true at Royal Plastics, where quiet and order prevail. Touring Royal Plastics’ manufacturing facility is like being invited into an art studio where sculptors and designers work. Employees are quietly and intently hand-making parts or focusing on computer screens. Sounds are muffled and the air quality fresh, although room-sized ovens, refrigerators and vacuum dies unique to the composite industry inform visitors of the highly technical nature of the business.

Royal Plastics hires local people and trains them on the job. Gill says, “We like to grow our own people and we have been able to hire enough good people who graduate from regional schools.” The company employs approximately 90 people. “I kept the company in Minden because the people are here,” Gill said. Most of the employees live within 26 miles of Minden, and the retention rate is an impressive 87%. “The company is visionary, and we are the employer of choice in this region,” says Gill.

Still, Gill’s decision to remain in Minden is not without its problems in the current economy. Raw materials and finished products arrive and leave Minden by freight, and freight costs increase as fuel costs increase. “Our market is not here,” Gill says. “We pay more freight than any of our competitors.”

Best business advice

“Composites are hot now,” says Gill. “The military is buying and commercial airline travel is growing.” Composites are also a key component in a new generation of fuel-efficient automobiles now on the drawing boards in addition to other new applications. Gill said his company plans to grow by 30% this year and next. He adds, “In the last three or four years, we’ve really hit our stride.”

An additional company value Gill emphasizes to employees is to have a life outside of work. The company structures the work so that employees can plan and schedule family and volunteer activities. Employees work 10-hour days in order to take every other Friday off, and additional overtime hours are kept at a minimum. “I have a life outside of the workplace, and we encourage our employees to live full lives,” says Gill.

The best business advice Gill said he ever got was offered to him by a friend who advised, “Don’t hire people you don’t like.” Gill said, “I have hired every employee currently employed at Royal Plastics. It is nice to come to work and see your friends.

Who To Contact...

Royal Plastic Mfg., Inc.
1046 East 9th Street
Minden, NE 68959
308-832-2760
Email: info@rpm-composites.com