Hampel Corp.
W194 N11551 McCormick Dr., Germantown
Industry: Thick-gage plastic thermal forming for a diverse range of industries.
Employees: 106
Southeastern Wisconsin has a significant number of plastics manufacturers. There are many injection molders, blow molders and thermo formers scattered throughout the area. Because of that high concentration, it takes something special to make one company stand out from its peers in the industry in metro Milwaukee.
It isn’t tough to see what makes Hampel Corp. different from the others in the plastics industry. The company specializes in making large, thick-gage thermal formed pieces. Using its oversized thermal forming presses, Hampel is able to produce components for mining shovels, riding lawn tractors, wall panels, hutches used to raise beef and dairy calves, doors and roofs used for portable restrooms, and much more.
The company does business in three divisions: portable restrooms, animal care, and its molded solutions – where it supplies thermal formed products to OEM customers, said Paul Lorge, president of the company. Its molded solutions division is about half of the company’s total sales.
Hampel’s molded solutions division molds cab covers for global mining products manufacturers, engine covers and panels used in riding lawn tractors and even some motorcycle components, using its thermal equipment. The company is also able to use its expertise to help customers solve long-standing problems, Lorge said. For John Deere, the company was able to develop a reusable and adjustable plastic container to ship its mower decks in, eliminating the use of temporary wood crates.
The company also helped a distributor of dumpster lids solve a breakage problem with their lids.
“They kept getting breaks along the hinge line,” Lorge said. “We developed a patented twin-sheet process that was able to reinforce the hinge line, which ultimately gave them a lower cost and higher quality product.”
Hampel’s animal products division, which operates under the Calf-Tel brand name, specializes in outdoor and indoor housing products for calves. Typically, calves are physically separated from each other while they are growing to prevent infection. Hampel’s outdoor calf hutches look like oversized dog houses, but are made from one piece of plastic, which makes them both durable and easy to disinfect.
Hampel’s Calf-Tel brand has about 55 percent of the U.S. market share in calf housing products. There are about 400,000 animals that are currently using Hampel-made calf housing in the country. Roughly 45 percent of the company’s Calf-Tel products are sold in the export markets, Lorge said.
In mid 2009, Hampel sold its portable restroom division to Satellite Industries, a Minneapolis-based distributor of portable restrooms. Although it sold the division, Hampel continues to build components for its own portable restroom designs, as well as some of Satellite’s.
Last year, the company made the most portable restroom components in its history.
“On our own, our best year was 19,000 units in 2007,” Lorge said. “We built about 35,000 units last year as a supplier to Satellite.”
Hampel is owned by Lance Hampel, who founded the company in 1976. It now has 106 full time employees and between 20 and 25 temporary workers.
Last year, the company completed a 60,000-square-foot addition of its facility. It now occupies about 160,000 square feet of space in Germantown.
The company had almost $24 million in sales in 2010, Lorge said, which is just shy of its sales record set in 2007.
“We saw growth in all sectors,” Lorge said. “The divestiture (of the portable restroom business) helped. Our molded solutions business grew nicely and became more stable.”
The company expects about seven percent growth for 2011. Its February sales were the strongest for the month in the company’s history, Lorge said.
“February is typically a slower month for us,” he said. “Sales were good across all of our sectors and we think it bodes well for the rest of the year.”
