President's Corner
Almost four decades ago, shortly after New Year’s Day in 1988, I made my first visit to 23 New England Way, the North American home of Windmoeller & Hoelscher. I had been asked to come down and meet Jim Feeney, then President of W&H Corporation.
The first W&H headquarters, built in 1977.
In 1988, W&H generated roughly $35 million in North American business. While we had been selling into the U.S. since 1901, this marked the first true commitment to the American market. Enough land was purchased to at least dream about U.S.-based manufacturing someday.
Fast forward to 2017, and North American sales had grown to $200 million. Our product mix had evolved dramatically: Extrusion at 41%, Printing at 45%, and Multiwall/Converting at 14%. We had grown to 61 people, and our once-brown wooden building had long before been “upgraded” with white stucco—an unmistakable case of lipstick on a pig. (In fact, the brown wood never even came off; we simply covered it up.) As the most significant hub in the W&H global organization, we all knew we had outgrown our surroundings and deserved a headquarters that better reflected who we had become.
A series of personal challenges delayed expansion plans, followed by the COVID pandemic and the resulting global supply chain crisis. Meanwhile, we were bursting at the seams. Warehouse shelves were stacked to the ceiling with essential spare parts and office space stretched well beyond its limits.
The W&H building after putting up white siding, a much improved look.
I remember the nearly one-hour drive from my home in Boston like it was yesterday. As I turned into the nondescript industrial park in Lincoln, Rhode Island, I had no idea what to expect. At the far end of the park sat an ugly cement-and-brown-wood structure, hastily assembled like so many quasi-industrial buildings of the mid-1970s. Standing there that day, I could not have imagined how many hours I would spend inside those walls - or how many friendships, challenges, successes, and defining moments would unfold there. Nor could I have known how deeply this place and this company would become woven into my life over the next 38-plus years.
Although I didn’t officially start working for W&H until May of that year, I was already in regular contact with Jim and a handful of others. At the time, we were a small group of about 25 people trying to build something meaningful in a very competitive market.
Back then, W&H’s North American business was anchored by a booming flexo printing division and its primary revenue drivers were tubers and bottomers for the multiwall bag business. These machines supported industrial sack production for cement, building materials, and the highly profitable pet food market. Plastic bag machines, a fledgling newspaper press, and blown film extrusion lines rounded out a modest but ambitious product portfolio.
A rendering of how the building will look in early 2026.
Finally, in 2024, we undertook the long-awaited expansion.
We more than doubled our warehouse capacity to better serve our customers in the U.S. and Canada, and doubled our office space to support a growing and needed workforce. Annual sales had reached $300 million, a staggering leap from our humble beginnings. Today, W&H Corporation is approaching 100 employees, and our expanded home stands as a visible symbol of our unwavering commitment to the North American market.
But this expansion is about far more than bricks and mortar. It reflects perseverance, trust, and a shared vision built over decades. It honors those who came before me, leaders like Jim Feeney and Hans Deamer, as well as our exceptional leadership team in Germany, all of whom believed deeply in us and in the promise of this market.
I am immensely proud of what we have built and even prouder of how we built it. We have always believed in doing the right thing for our customers. Along the way, we didn’t just build a business; we built relationships and true partnerships, strengthened by the constant exchange of ideas, innovation, and mutual respect.
Yes, the Kool-Aid has been drunk—and every new employee is still welcomed with their own six-pack to get started. We believe in the company, the concept, and, above all, our customers. And after nearly four decades, I wouldn’t have it any other way.