Alpha Con Plastics was founded in 1969. In 1985, Dave Spence, a 25-year-old entrepreneur, acquired the company and began building a management team that has remained stable over the past 26 years. With the help of an SBA loan, Dave was ready to start a new era in the company, and changed the name to Alpha Plastics.

Producing blow molded wheels for barbecue pits, gym rings for outdoor swing sets, and about 35,000 bottles per day, Dave opened shop in February 1985. Soon, Dave recruited Dan Creston to join his team. Dave's ideas and Dan's handle on details and implementation were a perfect match. The two soon started replacing worn out machines and hit the road in search of new business.

In need of sales help, Alpha hired Carol McLerran to handle sales in Kansas City. Her impact was immense and she quickly brought in several larger customers – many of whom remain core customers today.

The gym ring and BBQ wheels eventually disappeared as Alpha became solely in the bottle business; selling bottles and jars to Northwestern Bottle (now TricorBraun), Riekes Container (now Berlin), Package Supply and Equipment, Smith Container (now TricorBraun), Consolidated Glass, Calpac Container and Empire Bottle.

In 1989, we bought our first injection blow molding machine. Alpha also bought Techniprint, a St. Louis bottle decorating company. We felt as if we were sitting on top of the world offering the trifeta of injection blow molding, extrusion blow molding and decoration capabilities. However, despite raising exposure, the acquisitions were not as ideal as imagined. Alpha dropped the decoration business in 1991 and refocused on our bottle making strengths.

In 1992, Alpha moved to a more modern building that facilitated our growth in the pharmaceutical and vitamin business. By encouraging plant tours, Alpha gained a needed boost in credibility. Around the same time, Silgan Plastics Corporation shut down a St. Louis blow molding operation, enabling Alpha to hire many people with industry experience. Among these hires was Roy Allen, our current Director of New Product Development. Roy was a major boost to technical capabilities.

Mike DeFazio joined Alpha in 1994, at a time that we were struggling with growing pains and getting dragged down by the commodity side of our business. Mike had come from the aircraft industry, and was able to look at our situation objectively to see there were large parts of our business we could get rid of. While we had been emotionally attached to some of our business, Mike’s objectivity led us to part with about 30% of our business. While the short-term effects were tough, our decision to focus on markets that required higher quality and faster production rates helped shape the direction for our future.

In 1997, Alpha bought two Aoki stretch blow molding machines and ten molds to get into the PET packer market. These acquisitions helped gain serious looks from larger companies on new pieces of business. Fifteen years later, Alpha now owns 60 Aoki machines and produces over 400 million PET packers a year.

Seeking a way to give back to the community and employees, the Alpha Charitable Foundation was launched in 1999. This was an outlet for Alpha to give back in several areas, such as scholarships to employees' children, to help with tuition funding at trade schools, junior colleges and universities. We also make charitable contributions to organizations and causes of significance to our employees. This is a continuing source of pride.

After deciding that our facility was too small, Alpha relocated to our current headquarters, a factory that we renovated and expanded to a 211,000 square-foot factory and warehouse. It is considered by many to be the best in the industry. At the same time , we learned that Gutmann Plastics in Brooklyn, New York was for sale. Alpha purchased Gutmann in December 2001 to help us better serve a growing customer base in the Northeast.

Sales skyrocketed during this time period, jumping from $18 million in 2000 to $37 million in 2003. The New York plant further legitimized Alpha in the industry as more than just a Midwest supplier. In just six months, Alpha took the New York plant (which resembled a young Alpha) from losing money to making a profit by adding higher speed machinery and changing the product mix.

In August of 2004, Alpha opened a factory in Salt Lake City, putting us in every region of the country, and giving us better access to the significant nutritional market on the West Coast.

That was just the beginning of a period of rapid expansion for Alpha. Since 2004, Alpha Packaging has grown considerably, both through strategic acquisitions and through internal reinvestments that generated organic growth opportunities. Our expansion into new areas of the United States has enabled us to establish a truly national presence in personal care packaging, and our recent acquisition of Technigraph Corporation enables us to provide high-quality decorating services to this demanding market segment. Since 2010, we have also operated a manufacturing plant in The Netherlands, and intend to increase our presence in Europe. Highlights of our major developments include:

2005 – Purchased Yorkbridge Packaging Northeast in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Primary product lines at this location include PET amenities bottles and other personal care packaging.

2007 – Purchased Quality Container in Ypsilanti, Michigan and opened a new 120,000 square-foot plant in Jacksonville, Florida, to bring our total number of bottle manufacturing plants to five. Also in 2007, Alpha achieved $100 million in sales for the first time and won Supplier of the Year Awards from the nation's two largest distributors and the National Association of Container Distributors.

2008 – Acquired Technigraph Corporation (Winona, Minnesota) to bring additional services to customers that require multi-color, high-speed, tightly-registered screen printing, pressure sensitive labeling and other demanding decorating processes. Sales for 2008 exceeded $125 million, representing nearly 25% growth over 2007 sales.

2009 – Despite the turbulent economy, Alpha’s unit sales in 2009 increased slightly from 2008’s record sales, and the year ended strong for Alpha. Continued reinvestment in new tools and machines for all of Alpha's plants enabled us to emerge from the economic downturn with substantial momentum – and new capacity for 2010.

2010 – Putting new capacity into production, Alpha sold a record of 1.06 billion bottles and had sales of $132 million. Early in the year, Alpha purchased the assets of European blow molder SmartPET and opened a new manufacturing facility in Roosendaal, The Netherlands, to serve the PET packer and OTC liquid pharmaceutical markets in Europe. In the fall of 2010, Alpha received a substantial equity investment from Irving Place Capital, which enabled us to make our largest acquisition to date: Progressive Plastics of Cleveland, Ohio. This acquisition of this $40 million blow molder brought nearly 300,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehouse space, 33 blow molding machines, and 4 container decorating lines to Alpha, and a total sales capacity in excess of $200 million.

Alpha is always looking for ways to help our customers receive more value from their packaging purchases. We work closely with distributors to ensure that our bottles and jars conform to your standards for labeling and shipping, and our regional manufacturing helps minimize lead times and shipping costs for customers across the globe.

Today, Alpha produces over 2 million bottles per day and employs over 800 people. We ship to over 30 countries and to every state. The 18th largest blow molder of bottles in the U.S. (as ranked by Plastics News in November 2011), Alpha has come further than ever imagined, and won numerous awards for service and design capabilities. Dave Spence, Alpha Packaging’s president and CEO from 1985 to 2011, resigned from those positions in December 2011, but remains a significant shareholder.

Alpha is more than bottles. Alpha is determination, following dreams, keeping your humility and sense of humor. Alpha is a tribute to hard work, friendship, sacrifice and fear of failure. Without loyal customers and suppliers, and support from family and friends, our story would not have happened. The future is bright for Alpha. We have grown greatly and look forward to reaching greater heights in the future.