By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Bob Deardurff loves the scene in “The Graduate” when a character shares the secret of success with Dustin Hoffman. Just one word – plastics.
That one word has proved to be Deardurff’s success at Phoenix Technologies in Bowling Green, which was named Wood County Corporate Citizen of the Year on Wednesday evening.
In fact, the company has had so much success that one out of every 20 plastic bottles recycled in the U.S. comes to the Bowling Green company, Deardurff said.
Phoenix Technology takes plastics full circle by using items from the recycling center on North College Avenue, washing the items at its plant on East Poe Road, then converting the plastic into pellets at its plant on Fairview Avenue.
“We have an opportunity in Wood County and Bowling Green, so we can close the loop,” all within a half mile, Deardurff said.
The recycled plastic is then returned to items for packaging food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, shampoo, soap and detergents.
Annual meeting of Wood County Economic Development Commission
When introducing the Corporate Citizen of the Year, Wood County Commissioner Doris Herringshaw noted the company’s beginnings in 1985 in Toledo.
“The business flourished,” she said, and by 1991 was manufacturing bottles for Palmolive dishwashing detergent.
In 1992, the company opened in Bowling Green, and by 1993, the company had one manufacturing line and eight employees. Before long, they added two more lines. Then in 1999, they patented the technology to be able to serve larger markets.
“All the while they were focusing on be environmentally friendly and green,” Herringshaw said.
The company now employees 96 people at its two facilities in Bowling Green. “They are the key to making this company successful,” Deardurff said of the employees.
Much has changed since 1973 when the technology was first developed to use plastic for making bottles instead of glass.
“Much of that technology was done here in Northwest Ohio,” Deardurff said.
The company continues to advance the value of recycling through technology, he said.
Also at the annual meeting of the Wood County Economic Development Commission on Wednesday evening, speaker Jerry Anderson offered a tribute to former county commissioner Alvie Perkins who died in January.
“We all knew he was a giant of a public servant,” Anderson said. “He always put public service before politics.”
The economic development commission also installed new officers, with Doug Miller as president, Jerry Greiner as treasurer, Jack Jones as member-at-large, and Lane Williamson as immediate past president.
