September 1, 2000

4 Min Read
'PerfectioNist' Heritage Defines Seattle-Tacoma Box Co.

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'PerfectioNist' Heritage Defines Seattle-Tacoma Box Co.

By Barry Morris

With today's "new economy" dominated by businesses rooted in technology andother 20th-century breakthroughs, firms with origins in the 19th century and earlier arebecoming increasingly scarce. Those that have survived have done so through successfulevolution, remarkable resilience and, in most cases, several generations of familyinvolvement. This combination aptly describes the formula for the success ofSeattle-Tacoma Box Co., a 111-year-old producer of, among other things, stackable woodencontainers for the mobile-storage industry.

It was in the wake of the devastating Seattle fire of June 1889--in which all ofdowntown Seattle was destroyed after a glue pot ignited--that Jacob Nist established theQueen City Manufacturing Co., parent company for Seattle-Tacoma Box. With Nist's employer,Seattle Lumber and Commercial Co., falling victim to the blaze, he and his son, Michael,launched a new enterprise making wood products such as egg crates.

Not all ran smoothly from that point forward. Fire would once again do major damage toJacob's livelihood; in fact, the company endured major fire damage four times in its first31 years. Other obstacles on the horizon would include the Great Depression of 1929, laborunrest in the Pacific Northwest, skyrocketing lumber prices, and yet another fire in 1973.These and other challenges, not the least of which was stiff competition from much largercorporations, would jeopardize the company's very existence. Yet the company endured, andhas evolved into the multifaceted organization that exists today as Seattle-Tacoma Box Co.

Operations are headquartered in Kent, Wash., situated midway between the two largercities comprising the company's name. Several other manufacturing facilities anddistribution centers are scattered in Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska and Hawaii,and the company even runs a furniture-grade cut-stock operation in Tauranga, on the northisland of New Zealand. While agricultural packaging, corrugated boxes and the like havealways been Seattle Box's mainstays, it is in a particularly uncharacteristicproduct--concave blocks and straps to contain expensive steel tubulars for petroleumexploration and production--that the company takes great pride.

The venture began when a major oil company asked if it could store some of its NorthSlope pipe on the company's property near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Seeing that much of thepipe material was being lost to damage in transport and on the site, Seattle-Tacoma Boxdesigned a packaging and containment system that was reasonably flexible for placement onuneven terrain, separated pipe sections from each other, could be loaded by forklift in amatter of minutes, could be stacked indefinitely, and provided significantly greatersafety in handling.

The product proved highly successful, and opened exciting new business forSeattle-Tacoma Box that quickly spread to Europe and the Pacific Rim, including deliveriesto offshore oil platforms.

Six Generations Strong

Beginning with Jacob, six generations of Nist family members have made contributions tothe success of Seattle-Tacoma Box Co. Following in Jacob's footsteps have been two sons,four grandsons, three great-grandsons, three great-great-grandsons, and the latestgeneration, represented by a great-great-great-grandson named after the founder himself.

Mobile-storage vaults are currently a sizable part of the company's business, withabout 7,000 units produced annually, according to Rob Nist, marketing manager andfifth-generation descendant. It was a neighboring entrepreneur, Tim Riley (founder of DoorTo Door Storage), who was instrumental in launching Seattle-Tacoma Box's vault business."Tim came to me and said, 'Here's the business I want to do. Design me a box,'"Rob says. "We spent quite an extensive period of time designing the box for him. Thenwe got it done and made a few hundred of them. We've continually changed it to where it'sat today."

Two specific types of containers are produced: One is a bolt-together, collapsiblemodel known as the EasyBox, appealing to those customers wanting to create extra space intheir warehouses to sub-lease during slow times of the year. Other customers prefer boxesthat are nailed and glued together, and this can be done at the site by the customerhimself or a Seattle-Tacoma Box crew.

A generally favored, semi-standard vault measures 8-by-5-by-7 feet. This size seems toprovide optimum storage space, stackability and portability without the handlingdifficulties and other problems posed by slightly larger sizes.

Rob is optimistic about the storage-vault business. The mobile-storage industry is juststarting to take off, he says, with awareness continually growing thanks to the serviceaspect of the business. He describes the phenomenon with this analogy: "Twenty yearsago, everyone who wanted a pizza went to the pizza parlor. Today, you pick up the phoneand they deliver to your door."

For the Nist family, greater awareness of the mobile-storage business means moredemand, more entrepreneurs entering the field and, consequently, greater demand forSeattle-Tacoma Box Co.'s wooden vaults. The family plan seems to be laid out well.

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