The best social program is a job
Lead Summary
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
“The best social program is a job” is often said by Anthony Pratt, whose family is the wealthiest in Australia these days. Mr. Pratt, who has been a client of mine since November 1993, believes in creating jobs. He and his family own the largest privately held packaging and paper company in the world.
Pratt came to America in the late 1980s. He built a 100-percent recycled containerboard mill in Georgia in 1994 (this is where I was first involved). Since then, Pratt has built four more, the last one being in Wapakoneta, Ohio, starting production last October. In that time, the company has grown from the 35th largest to the fifth largest box maker in the United States. They are No. 1 in Australia and have been for years.
Containerboard mills make lots of paper – 1,000 tons per day each. It takes lots of box plants employing lots of people to make boxes out of all that paper – the boxes that end up at your front door. For Pratt, three of those plants are in Ohio, with nearly 70 in total scattered throughout the United States.
In today’s world, the humble corrugated box is everywhere, environmentally friendly and 80% of them are placed in the recycle stream, not landfill after use (most of the others are in our attics holding Aunt Matilda’s flapper dress from the 1920s).
Mr. Pratt and his family are disrupters. His father’s family immigrated to Australia after release from Polish concentration camps at the end of World War II. They started by buying corrugated sheets and making boxes by hand in their garage in Australia in the late 1940s.
Mr. Pratt and his dad (and uncle) before him are indeed disrupters in business. They do things a different way. As our team in my company (two highly valued members of which live in Highland County) watched the Wapakoneta Mill being built in 18 months (we were there every month from groundbreaking through startup), another old-line company here in the states was building a new mill in another northern state. They broke ground nearly the same time as Wapakoneta, yet they are still seven to eight months from starting up. It will have taken them nearly twice as long to get up and running.
I like innovation in business and stability in government. Another way to say this is I like progressive businesses and conservative governments. Mr. Pratt has created over 10,000 high-paying jobs since I first met him. He and others like him can only do that when and where there is a stable, solid foundation upon which to build those businesses.
I beg to differ with former President Obama’s statement, “You didn’t build that.” Most certainly Mr. Pratt did, and people like Mr. Pratt will only take the tremendous risks involved in such an enterprise when and where they can find a location that offers a stable business environment.
I am known in this column as a very conservative pundit, for I believe the business world needs a very stable place to thrive. And I believe, like Anthony Pratt, that the best social program is a job.
Looking to the government for handouts is a loser attitude. Yes, we have some who, through no fault of their own, need the support of the rest of us in order to maintain a respectable and dignified life. We should and must take care of them. For most of us, however, we should be looking to our brains and our hands, and opportunities like Pratt Industries and other such companies create in order to live our lives in an honest and fruitful manner.
There are plenty of risks in building businesses like Pratt Industries; in fact, another of Anthony’s sayings is this: “You are never more than two years from bankruptcy.”
I want a country with stable rules, regulations and tax policies so that we have a place to grow more businesses like the one I have just described. These can provide a good future for us all. The very best social program is a job, a job where one makes things people want and need.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.
HCP columnist
“The best social program is a job” is often said by Anthony Pratt, whose family is the wealthiest in Australia these days. Mr. Pratt, who has been a client of mine since November 1993, believes in creating jobs. He and his family own the largest privately held packaging and paper company in the world.
Pratt came to America in the late 1980s. He built a 100-percent recycled containerboard mill in Georgia in 1994 (this is where I was first involved). Since then, Pratt has built four more, the last one being in Wapakoneta, Ohio, starting production last October. In that time, the company has grown from the 35th largest to the fifth largest box maker in the United States. They are No. 1 in Australia and have been for years.
Containerboard mills make lots of paper – 1,000 tons per day each. It takes lots of box plants employing lots of people to make boxes out of all that paper – the boxes that end up at your front door. For Pratt, three of those plants are in Ohio, with nearly 70 in total scattered throughout the United States.
In today’s world, the humble corrugated box is everywhere, environmentally friendly and 80% of them are placed in the recycle stream, not landfill after use (most of the others are in our attics holding Aunt Matilda’s flapper dress from the 1920s).
Mr. Pratt and his family are disrupters. His father’s family immigrated to Australia after release from Polish concentration camps at the end of World War II. They started by buying corrugated sheets and making boxes by hand in their garage in Australia in the late 1940s.
Mr. Pratt and his dad (and uncle) before him are indeed disrupters in business. They do things a different way. As our team in my company (two highly valued members of which live in Highland County) watched the Wapakoneta Mill being built in 18 months (we were there every month from groundbreaking through startup), another old-line company here in the states was building a new mill in another northern state. They broke ground nearly the same time as Wapakoneta, yet they are still seven to eight months from starting up. It will have taken them nearly twice as long to get up and running.
I like innovation in business and stability in government. Another way to say this is I like progressive businesses and conservative governments. Mr. Pratt has created over 10,000 high-paying jobs since I first met him. He and others like him can only do that when and where there is a stable, solid foundation upon which to build those businesses.
I beg to differ with former President Obama’s statement, “You didn’t build that.” Most certainly Mr. Pratt did, and people like Mr. Pratt will only take the tremendous risks involved in such an enterprise when and where they can find a location that offers a stable business environment.
I am known in this column as a very conservative pundit, for I believe the business world needs a very stable place to thrive. And I believe, like Anthony Pratt, that the best social program is a job.
Looking to the government for handouts is a loser attitude. Yes, we have some who, through no fault of their own, need the support of the rest of us in order to maintain a respectable and dignified life. We should and must take care of them. For most of us, however, we should be looking to our brains and our hands, and opportunities like Pratt Industries and other such companies create in order to live our lives in an honest and fruitful manner.
There are plenty of risks in building businesses like Pratt Industries; in fact, another of Anthony’s sayings is this: “You are never more than two years from bankruptcy.”
I want a country with stable rules, regulations and tax policies so that we have a place to grow more businesses like the one I have just described. These can provide a good future for us all. The very best social program is a job, a job where one makes things people want and need.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.