FORT WAYNE – When Charles “Chuck” Chaffee heard he’d received one of his industry’s highest honors, he had one question: “Why me?”

The CEO and co-founder of BRC Rubber & Plastics Inc. doesn’t want credit for his company’s ability to weather the choppy economy.

“One man doesn’t do anything,” he said. “It takes a team of dedicated people.”

Nevertheless, Rubber & Plastics News, a biweekly industry magazine, named Chaffee its Rubber Industry Executive of the Year.

Chaffee remembered the phone call that delivered the news: “He said, ‘You deserve it.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ ”

The reluctant recipient heaps mounds of credit on his managers and production workers who crank out rubber and plastic parts 24 hours a day.

Mike Meyer, BRC’s executive vice president, said Chaffee’s response was genuine.

“That’s Chuck. No egos. He gives the greater glory to the company,” Meyer said. “He would rather it be a BRC award, but that’s not how it’s always done in today’s world.”

Getting started

When Chuck and Cliff Chaffee founded Bluffton Rubber in 1973, the company’s sole focus was molding customer-designed parts.

Karen, Chuck’s wife, did payroll for a short time but mostly was a silent partner, raising the couple’s four children.

Six employees – two on each of three shifts – operated the company’s four pieces of equipment to keep the Bluffton factory humming around the clock.

The Chaffee brothers, who grew up in Ligonier, worked double duty to keep money coming in while they built the business. Chuck kept his job as a Culligan water treatment representative for 3 1/2 years. Cliff, who commuted to work Friday night to Sunday night every weekend, continued to work as an automotive engineer for Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., until Bluffton Rubber was on solid financial footing.

Chuck Chaffee recalled his early years of marriage, life in a trailer and endless meals of spaghetti and Hamburger Helper. He and Karen had to sell one of their two cars to make the down payment for their first home.

He took the same approach at work, keeping credit to a minimum. Through the years, Chuck and Cliff picked up the nickname “The Frugal Brothers.”

“We don’t spend money we don’t have,” Chuck Chaffee said.

Now, BRC employees design, develop, test, validate and manufacture rubber and plastic parts for specific applications. The company makes more than 3,000 distinct parts for about 380 customers. Automotive- and transportation-related products make up 88 percent of the output.

One example is the piece that prevents engine heat and noise from entering the passenger compartment of Toyota Corollas through the steering column. The part – a BRC specialty – also reduces steering wheel vibration.

Ford is the company’s biggest customer. General Motors Co., Chrysler and Caterpillar Inc. are three more.

Large manufacturers want to buy more from fewer companies. That reality pushes suppliers, including BRC, to increase their ability to make various parts.

Valuing each worker

Customers’ just-in-time manufacturing processes mean they don’t stockpile parts.

BRC’s employees, who work in three shifts at five plants, need to keep up with customers’ orders. Managers award bonuses to line workers for attendance because absences make it harder to hit production targets, Chaffee said.

If BRC doesn’t have a loyal, dependable workforce, Toyota’s assembly line could come to a standstill, Chaffee said. If that happens, he said, BRC will lose customers and end up going out of business.

That reality is what makes the CEO value every worker who stands on his production line.

The company shows appreciation to line workers by having managers grill burgers, bratwurst and hot dogs at cookouts for employees each year.

Chaffee’s desire to create more of a family dynamic in the workplace has influenced the company’s structure. Operating five plants in different cities makes it easier to find workers than trying to pull the total workforce from one community, he said.

Also, keeping production of various parts separated from others keeps each workplace more focused, said Meyer, the executive vice president.

But a major factor that keeps the owners from consolidating operations is their belief that smaller groups give employees a greater sense of ownership. BRC organizes five company picnics – one for each production plant – to enhance that sense of family, Chaffee said. The company’s Michigan-based sales and engineering staff is taken to lunch each year in lieu of a picnic.

The largest employee group, at Churubusco, is about 175. That’s as big as he wants the plant to get.

“Our people are our most important asset,” he said of the workforce that includes natives of Burma, Bosnia, Vietnam, Mexico and other countries.

“He believes in people,” Karen Chaffee said about her husband.

Many employees have remained with the company for 20 or more years, Meyer said. That combined pool of experience allows the company to meet customers’ expectations, he said. Chaffee agrees.

“Our customers will not settle for second-best. They need world-class parts on time and at the lowest price,” he said.

The challenge, Chaffee said, is to meet customers’ needs, which are constantly changing.

“We have to earn our position every day,” he said.

Even three generations of Chaffees have to pull their own weight. Chaffee’s four sons work for the company, but none reports directly to his father or uncle. Two grandchildren have worked there during summer breaks. Each is accountable for doing a good job.

“The rubber business has been very good to our family,” Chaffee said. “We’re not afraid of the word ‘profit.’ We have to be a profitable company to survive.”

The CEO declined to release annual profit or sales numbers. The 2009 Harris Indiana Industrial Directory estimated the company’s annual sales at $47 million. Last year, business was challenging even for BRC, which had its first layoff. The company cut hourly workers to three or four days a week; managers were off every other Friday without pay.

The slowdown, which lasted four to six months, helped the company survive a time when demand was weak. BRC is back at full production levels.

Growth or death

Manufacturers either keep growing, or they begin to die, Chaffee said.

If a company maintains a consistent income, it actually loses ground because costs increase, taking a bigger chunk of profits, he said.

“We didn’t have any ambition to be this big,” he said. “It just happened.”

BRC has acquired a series of competitors, a practice that continued during the recession when numerous companies were pushed into financial hardship. Chaffee used the downturn as an opportunity to acquire some teetering on bankruptcy. The past decade’s list includes:

•Hawkeye Rubber Co.; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; 2002

•Bardon Rubber Products Co.; Union Grove, Wis.; 2003

•RTE Rubber Co.; Quincy, Ill.; 2004

•Ottawa Rubber Co.; Bradner, Ohio; 2006

•IMCO Inc.; Huntington; 2009

The IMCO acquisition, in April of last year, allowed BRC to bring its laid-off workers back full time, Chaffee said. The company could afford to buy competitors because of the conservative way the Chaffees run the business.

Today, Chaffee focuses on strategic planning and leaves day-to-day operations to the company’s president and his management team.

In mid-August, Chaffee and a team bought used factory equipment at an auction, paying 15 percent of what it would cost new.

Failed rubber companies have created a glut of used equipment on the market, Meyer said.

Chaffee, who frequently recalls that he was a mediocre student, sees almost endless opportunities to be resourceful. He considers everyone a potential source of ideas to improve his business, from front-line workers to visitors simply touring the plant. An innocent question could lead to a change that improves the process, he said.

Chaffee keeps striving for ways to perfect his company.

“I’m working harder now than I have any of the last 10 years of my life,” he said. “I’m a C student, not a Harvard MBA.”

He’s reached retirement age, but the CEO isn’t winding down.

“I can’t see retiring. It’s just not in the cards right now,” he said, laughing. “I’m not a good enough golfer.”

Meyer thinks Chaffee is a great fit for CEO, describing his boss as honest and fair.

“He’s been successful because of his leadership abilities,” Meyer said. “He gets more out of people than most leaders.”

sslater@jg.net