Printed in the St. Louis Business Journal
Written by Ron Janecke
Business activity : When Rudi Roeslein arrived in the United States from Austria at the age of 8 with his parents, all of the family’s belongings were in two wooden crates. Today, Roeslein is president of Roeslein & Associates Inc. and a partner in Total Process Corp. The two companies have combined revenue of $20 million.
Roeslein & Associates is a full-service professional design and build company. Its “glamour” product is preassembled systems for the container manufacturing, packaging and filling industries. Many of Roeslein’s customers are overseas, from Russia and China to Brazil. Rudi Roeslein calls the process “systems integration,” with units for can production lines being preassembled at the Total Process plant in Red Bud, Ill.
Executives: Rudi Roeslein, 49, is president and co-founder of Roeslein & Associates. His family arrived from Salzburg, Austria, in 1956, and located in south St. Louis. Rudi Roeslein graduated from Saint Louis University in 1971 with a degree in electrical engineering and got his start in the can business with Container Corp. of America. Before opening his own firm, he was executive vice president with Gismo Industrial Systems of America, a company no longer in business. He owns 75 percent of Roeslein and is a partner in Total Process.
Fritz Dickmann, 49, is executive vice president and a cofounder of the company. He owns 25 percent of Roeslein & Associates. He is also an electrical engineering graduate of Saint Louis University. He also holds an MBA from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. He handles most of the firm’s administrative duties.
Mark Johnston is the majority owner of the Total Process manufacturing plant in Red Bud.
Company history: Roeslein and Dickmann incorporated Roeslein & Associates March 1, 1990. The firm started with seven employees and hit $1 million in revenue the first year. Ball Corp., headquartered in Muncie, Ind., was an early client for Roeslein and has provided work for the company through the years. The first major project the companies collaborated on was in Mexico.
What really put Roeslein on its way, however, was a project for Campbell Soup Co. in 1992-93. “We grew quickly the first six years,” Roeslein said.
The company had grown to 50 people before the can industry began downsizing, and Roeslein was forced to cut his staff this spring. “It was the toughest thing I’ve had to do,” Roeslein said. “We’re a small enough company, so I know all the people personally and their families.
“The canmaking industry is driven by the soft drink and beer industries,” Roeslein said. Hence, the fall and winter are the busiest for the firm so the assembly line units can be ready for the hot-weather months.
There are untapped markets for Roeslein in India, China and Africa, but the company also must compete with firms using the cheaper labor supply abroad. The amount charged by workers in United States on an hourly basis is often the weekly salary for some workers in foreign countries.
The Roeslein headquarters had been in South Towne Square in south St. Louis County until the company moved to a 42,000-square-foot facility on Watson Road in late November. Initially, the firm is using 10,000 square feet. Roeslein and Dickmann are equal owners of the building.
The manufacturing plant in Red Bud takes 125,000 square feet of a 500,000-square-foot building, and the partners are looking for tenants to help fill the rest of the space.
Roeslein has done work in Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, and consulting work in several other countries.
Revenue: In 1997, revenue hit $20 million with about 40 people on the headquarters staff and 50 working at the manufacturing plant.
The “unitizing” process: Roeslein has designed a structure that is referred to as a unit section, thus the term “unitizing.” The structure allows the firm to integrate the piping, ducting and electrical wiring into the unit section.
The assembly lines for cans are in three sections — the front end, middle line and the back end. A system being produced now is 7 feet 6 inches wide and is headed for Russia. While systems made in 1985-86 turned out 600-800 cans per minute, the new lines produce 2,000 cans per minute.
Roeslein guarantees the schedule and the cost of the project and usually plans on 10 weeks to install. By preassembling the system, Roeslein allows a firm to have a minimum amount of down time while the structure is being installed. Often a company’s plant is built so it can accommodate the structure built here.
One of Roeslein’s most recent projects was a beverage can manufacturing plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which features two can lines. With the two lines running, up to 4,000 cans per minute can be produced.
Professional services: Cass Bank has been the company’s banker from the start. Peper Martin Jensen Maichel & Hetlage is the law firm, and David Holder is the accountant and a small investor in the Red Bud manufacturing building.
The future: As the industry has changed, Roeslein is expanding to the plastics and food processing fields where its process can be applied.
“We have to be flexible,” Roeslein said. “We will fit in where a company wants us. A company like Ball has its own engineering staff but will use us for some projects.”
Rudi also wants never to forget where he came from. “I told my dad, please don’t throw away those two crates.”