Kansa Corp. moves ahead with Vektek
Emporia company’s sales are up this year
By Scott Rochat
Friday, October 13, 2006
With two record-breaking quarters behind them and some strong international possibilities ahead, things are looking pretty good for Kansa Corp.
The Emporia-based manufacturer of newspaper post-press equipment recently reported an unprecedented $2.5 million sales volume in its third quarter. That came hard on the heels of a $2.3 million second quarter.
No, not bad at all.
“The general economy is relaxing a bit,” said Jerry Waddell, chief executive officer and company co-founder. “People were pretty tight-fisted about spending money on capital equipment for a while. That change, plus new products, sums it up as well as anything I can say.”
Before 2002, Kansa’s future hadn’t looked quite so rosy. Back then, the company was still owned by Baldwin Technologies, a Connecticut firm. Baldwin’s balance sheet had hit a rough spot and the company decided to sell off Kansa’s sheet metal and machine shops to save costs.
At least, until Waddell and another co-founder, Ron Swint, re-entered the picture. The two bought back Kansa aided by a third partner — Gray Automotive Products of St. Joseph, Mo., the parent company of Emporia’s Vektek.
As a result, Vektek and Kansa have become “sister companies” lately. In fact, Kansa has already built one product to order for Vektek, a laser used to mark parts.
“We’re acting as their assembler,” Waddell said. “We assemble the parts and ship it, but we didn’t design it and we don’t market it.”
The relationship is so close that Vektek CEO Roger Kraft also holds a title as vice-president at Kansa and has helped build the company’s new management team.
“Roger’s own management experience has been helpful here,” Waddell said.
The new team no longer includes Swint, who announced his retirement in August. Swint was vice president of marketing and later the company president.
The reorganized Kansa now includes a chief operating officer, company veteran Lonnie Worthington, along with controller/human resources director Juanita White, manufacturing manager Dan Snyder, engineering manager Tom Edwards and marketing manager Jesse Miser.
Waddell remains CEO and has no plans to retire soon. Still, he said, having the new team on board will allow him to ease off a bit.
“I’m very interested in Kansa’s future and success,” he said. “I’ll want to remain interested and involved. But I’m reducing my day-to-day activities as much as possible.”
The company introduced one of its new products, the M-2 Twister, last March. The device is an inserter for use by larger newspapers, such as those in the New York Times family of papers. Several other things are on the drawing board, Waddell said, but aren’t at a stage where anything can be announced.
Right now, Waddell said, Miser and another marketing official are at an international trade show in Amsterdam.
“They’re very optimistic that there’s business to be had there,” Waddell said.
If so, it would be part of a return to what had been a Kansa strength — international marketing. Before Baldwin purchased Kansa in 1989, about 30 percent of Kansa’s sales were made overseas. That trailed off during the Baldwin days, but may be on the rebound.
“We are increasing our international presence,” Waddell said. “We’re looking at marketing in India and China. We have machinery in Russia and we plan to put additional machinery in.”
Barring any 9-11 scale disaster, Waddell said, things should continue to go well for the reorganized company.
“We’re just going to keep working to do more of the same,” he said.
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