When Michael Conny started MAC Trailer Manufacturing in 1992 with an $8,000 loan from his parents, he was sure of one thing: He wanted to be independent.
After spending the last 10 years out of high school working for other trailer manufacturers, he realized there were things — a lot of things — he could do better. What he didn’t know was that the more success and independence he achieved, the less he could leave those other companies in his industry behind.
Over the last eight years, Conny has build MAC Trailer in Alliance into a $60 million company. He expects revenues to reach $75 million this year.
Conny started MAC Trailer in a single bay garage in Alliance. Repairing trailers in the garage, and using an outhouse as a sales office, he grew the company to $700,000 in sales within a year and a half.
In 1995, armed with a $50,000 loan from the City of Alliance and the Stark Development Board, Conny built a 12,000-square-foot facility at his present location, on Commerce Street in Alliance and expanded his business from just repairing trailers to also building them from scratch. He made his last payment on that loan earlier this year.
Before his first expansion was completed, Conny started to plan his second. By the end of 1995, less than three years after starting the company, sales had reached $3.5 million and MAC employed 35 people.
“It was a snowball and it rolled in the right direction, building momentum,” Conny says of his early growth. “I had no idea that it was going to do that. Every time I built an addition, I wouldn’t think to look for the next addition — which cost us a great deal to build again, because I would have to do things three times.”
When he finally faced the growth potential that his industry held, he started to plan his expansions. After his fourth expansion, he started looking ahead.
“In 1998, my eyes opened to how big a market I was really in, and how far I could take this business.”
That year, Conny purchased 20 acres near his facility. Twenty of those are undeveloped, leaving MAC with plenty of room to grow.
“I didn’t want to let it slip away from me,” he says. “As long as the economy holds up, we’ll be here for the next rise in the economy also.”
As MAC grew at such a phenomenal rate, Conny realized people were paying attention to his company.
He has maintained an open policy when it comes to talking about his company. He has divulged his private company’s sales figures to the local and trade media, and in the applications for awards of achievement he has won. (He was a 1999 finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year competition.) But the public recognition of his success has brought with it another form of recognition, from his industry.
“When you’re open about your business, it’s a double-edged sword,” he says. “The people who want to create a problem for you are more aware of what you’re doing. But to get growth and attract good people, you have to be in the public eye. I’m struggling with that.”
One of his recent struggles involved $2.8 billion Mack Trucks, a subsidiary of Renault of France, which manufactures and distributes heavy-duty trucks and truck component parts.
While Conny has agreed not to discuss the case, according to a complaint filed in September 1999, the counsel for Mack Trucks sent a letter to MAC Trailer in late 1998, charging MAC with trademark infringement.
MAC Trailer states in the complaint that Mack Trucks had been aware of MAC’s existence for at least four years prior to the letter, primarily through meetings at truck shows, where both companies were exhibitors.
But it wasn’t until September 1998 (the year MAC’s sales grew to about $30 million) that Mack Trucks sent the letter, charging MAC with using “virtually the identical mark on such closely related and complementary goods as trailers.”
Conny’s attorneys responded to Mack by explaining in a letter that not only are the two names spelled differently, but MAC is a supplier of trailers and Mack is a supplier of trucks. Three months later, in December 1998, Mack Trucks sent another letter to MAC, stating that “the only acceptable resolution from our point of view is a complete cessation of use of MAC in any form … ”
MAC responded by filing suit against Mack Trucks for a “declaratory judgment.” In other words, says patent and trademark attorney Roger Emerson, who is not affiliated with the case, “He (Conny) may have just gone into court and said, ‘I’m getting threatened for something I don’t think I did and I need you to step in here and adjudicate this’ — basically to decide this ahead of time.”
The court didn’t have to rule, because the two parties reached a settlement agreement after Mack Trucks responded to MAC’s complaint with a countersuit. Although Conny can’t discuss the case, he did confirm that the companies had reached a settlement, and MAC Trailer will not change its name.
“All I am permitted to say about this is that we will continue to keep the MAC name,” he says. “It’s been a great drag for a year and a half.”
Just as the copyright infringement case reinforced the importance of having good legal support, four IRS audits that MAC was hit with last year reminded Conny how valuable his accountants are.
“Listen to the team that surrounds you, from assistants to professional people,” Conny advises. “When you find out you can trust the team that surrounds you, use everybody’s opinions and knowledge as a group. Don’t think that your idea is the best idea. I think that’s been part of my success.”
The lawsuit and audits are also signs that Conny’s job has changed. As MAC pushes the $75 million mark, Conny is no longer the president of a small company.
“Before, when I grew the company to $40-$50 million in sales, I was on top of everything,” he says. “I no longer can be on top of every single thing going on in my company, and that’s something that, as an entrepreneur, you don’t see coming.”
Conny says it’s critical that he surround himself with competent, loyal people, especially now that he is being pulled further from the day-to-day operations .
“There’s a lot of people and a lot of things that take a swing at you,” he says. “In preparing to go to the next level of business, in order to grow any more, I have to make sure I have the right people around me. It’s more important now than ever.”
The right people for Conny now are the same people who were there in the beginning. Conny still relies on the managers he hired when MAC was doing about $1.5 million in sales. MAC’s vice presidents, Steve Taylor, materials and Joe Dennis, sales, and MAC’s corporate vice president, James Maiorana, were hired in 1994. Controller Robin Ward was brought on in 1995.
Maiorana was hired as a plant manager in 1994 to oversee a staff of 10. The former night shift foreman for Trail Star Manufacturing is now managing a staff of 400, but you wouldn’t know it from his modesty.
Our success “came from a bunch of good people working hard, building a good product, standing behind the product and taking care of the customer,” Maiorana says. “Really, all we did was get up and come to work every day. It’s really seemed pretty easy.”
How to reach: MAC Trailer Manufacturing, (330) 823-9900
Connie Swenson ([email protected]) is editor of SBN.