Steve Katz, Contributing Editor05.26.22
2700 E Plano Pkwy, Plano, TX, USA
www.mcdowelllabel.com
McDowell Label – a Resource Label Group Company, is one of the most decorated and renowned label manufacturers in the world. A stroll through the lobby and hallways of the company’s Plano, TX, facility reveal walls adorned with hundreds of plaques, awards and honors that span decades. Time and again, the label industry’s most esteemed associations – TLMI, FTA, L9, to name a few – have recognized McDowell Label for a host of achievements in label printing excellence.
While the company embarks on a new chapter, having recently become part of Resource Label Group (RLG), it’s fitting to take a look at McDowell Label’s history, culture, and what makes it an outstanding and synergistic addition to RLG. Meanwhile, the recognitions keep coming – at the recently concluded FTA and TLMI Awards competitions, McDowell Label took home several top honors, including the coveted Best of Show award at the 2021 TLMI Label Awards and multiple 2022 Gold FTA Excellence in Flexography honors.
At its inception, McDowell Label was solely a broker, representing some of the most prestigious brands across the US. Though Dave built a robust brokerage business, he had the foresight to get into manufacturing, and in 1994 invested in his first press, a Rotopress flexo press. In fact, McDowell’s first four presses were all Rotopress machines, manufactured in Cincinnati.
Dave leveraged the new flexo press technology that was ahead of its time. With the machines incorporating helical gears, registration was incredibly tight with minimal to no gear marks or chatter. “He chartered a quest to print the perfect dot. In fact, he adopted an offset mindset within a flexo world – he understood what brands wanted,” notes John McDowell, one of Dave’s three sons and president of McDowell Label.
“The quality was so good, everyone accused Dave McDowell of running offset,” John says.
John, who joined the company in 1997 after selling a thriving, multi-city, fitness club business, initially intended his tenure at McDowell Label to be a short one, a stopover on his way to his next venture. But, as he puts it, “I got bit by the ink bug,” he says, adding, “Around the time I came on board, Dad was considering selling the business. But I was marveling at the way his employees revered and respected him. But his core team was aging and approaching retirement, so he had an exit strategy that was beginning to be put in motion.”
However, there would be no exit at this time. “I said to Dad, ‘Look, you’re still young enough to keep working, and you love what you do. Teach me the business, we’ll roll up our sleeves, put a leg over the saddle and throttle this thing forward,” recalls John.
And forward McDowell Label went.
In addition to reinvigorating the McDowell workforce, the company did the same for its manufacturing technologies. “We’ve always been about innovation and differentiation, driving the business from a brand packaging perspective. When we outgrew the flexo technologies we’d been using, we went with a fleet of Gallus presses, and today – with our specialty being combination printing on multi-subtrates – we use several Gallus and Omet machines. We’ll always be on the bleeding edge of technology, whether it be developing proprietary solutions or investing in new capital equipment.”
Dave McDowell is one of the most accomplished label converters in the history of the industry. He is a TLMI Converter of the Year, was TLMI chairman of the Board, and traveled the world for years sharing his expertise and advancing the greater industry.
“With all of his accomplishments, the true pinnacle at the latter part of his career was coming to work with his three boys,” John says.
“We’re family, but I must admit, we do put the word ‘fun’ in dysfunctional,” he jokes. “While working with family can be challenging, it’s also so rewarding. We’ve all grown and matured, and there are no egos – we all have different skillsets and talents, and we’ve made it work, without stepping on one another.
“When we all came together to work with Dad, it was like a reunion after 15+ years apart. We got the band back together,” John says.
He adds, “Working with family certainly has its challenges, but I never experienced anything more rewarding than working with my father and two older brothers. We’re all Scot-Irish – so I assure you that when we don’t agree it’s like Slam Bang Theater. But we would always leave lockstep in stride, with the same pulse and heartbeat toward what we were going to do next. It’s really been a beautiful experience.
“And everyone was on the same page when it came to joining RLG,” he adds. “We had always done things no one else can do. We always were intentional and purposeful about innovation – and these are things that we’re now bringing to the RLG family. Our vision statement – that still exists today, is that we are one company, one team, with one purpose – to provide innovative brand packaging solutions for those who demand excellence.”
The McDowell vision extends to the company’s loyal customers. Explains John, “Our brand-owner customers expect us to challenge them with new innovations; how can they out-position their competition, how they can create more attractive and engaging shelf appeal, and how they can engage the consumer-experience with augmented and experiential packaging. We’ve always been about innovating and differentiating and curating new technologies from a brand packaging perspective.”
With superior quality and innovation being hallmarks of McDowell Label, the company excels in serving markets that value both, including wine, beer and spirits, prestige beauty and cosmetics, sports nutrition/dietary supplements, gourmet foods, household products and more.
“There were a lot of reasons why we ultimately chose RLG. For one, Resource Label Group is quite different from the other PE-driven firms in our space. Yes, every firm has their own respective value-proposition, and I actually consider many of them friends and professional peers. These other groups, though – sure, they know business – but through our experience of vetting these potential suitors, respectfully speaking, we identified they don’t know this business.
“RLG is focused on attracting the very best in both talent and technology, more so than simply acquiring bandwidth. Resource Label Group has a firm grip on the direction of the label industry and the toolbox, dare I say ‘resources,’ that has been developed internally within the company to effectively integrate all the facilities. It’s an unrivaled game-changer…and yet, there is so much more still to be launched,” says John.
The converters that RLG attracts, acquires and monetizes all possess subject matter expertise, John points out. “They’re all companies with diverse technologies, industry leadership, equipped with cohesive redundancies, and they represent strategic geographical footprints. They have their own brand and market renown.
“While capacity is always important, a lot of PE firms will buy a company solely based on said capacity,” John says. “And the buyer immediately goes in and takes the name off the building and changes the logo. They lose their identity, and the result is cultural and brand erosion. And then you get customer attrition – that’s typically the order in which it goes,” he explains, adding, “When you lose your identity as a company, that affects your human resource, which is your team, and that is a direct conduit with who you do business with. When you lose your identity and the subsequent loss of talent – your human resource – you inevitably will lose customers.
“Yes, you have to have technology and all the horses for the courses, but our industry is still very much relational – and it’s still all about people,” John says.
When looking into leveraging the company, the McDowells felt it was paramount to partner with an investment group that shares its same values and principles.
“Often, based on how my industry peers have lamented with their prior experiences, when capital groups come in and change everything overnight, from systems and processes to brand and people, and it’s done so fast and abrasively, there is no integration – just division and confusion,” he says. “Resource Label Group understands and values the importance of developing and curating strong relationships, internally and externally, while maintaining each facility’s individual brand recognition and identity.”
The decision to join forces with RLG was not a quick one. In fact, it was more than two years in the making. And it came as the McDowells were nearing the end of the long process of Dave McDowell transitioning the company to John.
Dave and John had a long conversation about the future of the business. “We discussed virtually everything – potential dynamics with our family, our amazing team (employees), our roster of long-term, loyal customers, and our trusted supply chain partners.
“We also discussed that given everything that’s happening in the marketplace, that at some point, whether it’s he and I doing it or it happens after the transition, that it’s not going to be a matter of if, but more a matter of when we’ll ultimately leverage the company. I said to him, ‘Knowing that, our market presence, and given the stage of life you’re in, let’s do it now so you can reap the rewards of the lifetime and legacy you’ve built in the business.”
John continues, “We’ve always been a David among Goliaths – everyone thinking we’re many times the size we were – which was by design. And because we’ve always self-funded our business, we had to carefully consider the risks versus rewards in how we judiciously grew the company.
“I said, ‘The rules of the game have changed, and there will come a point in time when the music is going to stop playing – and when it does, not everyone is going to have a seat at the table. Our company is thriving and vibing at a pivotal growth curve, the economy is good, everything is good, and we have tremendous trajectory. These things, in tandem with our innovative technologies, make us a remarkably attractive investment,” he adds.
Resource Label Group was one among a list of six suitors that the McDowells had narrowed down. And once they met with Mike Apperson, RLG’s chief executive officer, it became clear that they’d found the perfect fit.
“Mike is an incredible guy,” John says. “Not only is he astute and cerebral – a critical and creative thinker – he has a great understanding of brand and the importance of culture. I learned that what he really wanted to do with McDowell Label was pour kerosene on the business – take our subject matter expertise and position us to become another Center of Excellence within the RLG family – all the while integrating and parlaying the best practices from both organizations. This was important for many reasons, but especially given that I have a lot of runway left in me. He and I share the same vision for the corpus of the company. We’re 30 companies under 22 rooftops, and we continue to grow.”
An engaging leader, John respects the fact that he now works for someone who appreciates his intimate involvement in the business. He says, “I’m not wired to be a spectator, so I needed to trust that whomever we went with, I would serve an integral role in championing the visibility and growth of the overall company. And 18 months in, they’re fulfilling their campaign promise.
“We hired a general manager to run the day-to-day operations, which allows me to get out from within the business and more on top of the business. I now serve a completely new role. Previously I did a little bit of everything from finance to operations to sales and marketing, and now my role is focused on identifying and cultivating strategic, intrinsic partnerships, new acquisitions, and growing the core of the company. I still love what I do, who I do it with, and who we do it for – we’re still having fun.”
Resource Label Group operates under the mantra of “National Reach. Local Touch.” Across North America, each of the 30 companies within the RLG family bring specialization and vast experience, in addition to redundancy and contingency planning. The facilities work together and can offer brand-owner customers unmatched, comprehensive capabilities, and strategically located facilities.
With the addition of McDowell Label and its winning culture of excellence, RLG’s future is as bright as ever, furthering Dave McDowell’s vision to be the very best.
www.mcdowelllabel.com
McDowell Label – a Resource Label Group Company, is one of the most decorated and renowned label manufacturers in the world. A stroll through the lobby and hallways of the company’s Plano, TX, facility reveal walls adorned with hundreds of plaques, awards and honors that span decades. Time and again, the label industry’s most esteemed associations – TLMI, FTA, L9, to name a few – have recognized McDowell Label for a host of achievements in label printing excellence.
While the company embarks on a new chapter, having recently become part of Resource Label Group (RLG), it’s fitting to take a look at McDowell Label’s history, culture, and what makes it an outstanding and synergistic addition to RLG. Meanwhile, the recognitions keep coming – at the recently concluded FTA and TLMI Awards competitions, McDowell Label took home several top honors, including the coveted Best of Show award at the 2021 TLMI Label Awards and multiple 2022 Gold FTA Excellence in Flexography honors.
An Offset Mindset in a Flexo World
Dave McDowell started McDowell Label in 1981, following a successful 10-year stint at Avery Label. After learning the industry from Stan Avery, Dave decided he wanted to start his own label company. With a strong entrepreneurial spirit, a sense of pride and an engineering background, his goal was not to be the biggest label company – but to be the absolute best.At its inception, McDowell Label was solely a broker, representing some of the most prestigious brands across the US. Though Dave built a robust brokerage business, he had the foresight to get into manufacturing, and in 1994 invested in his first press, a Rotopress flexo press. In fact, McDowell’s first four presses were all Rotopress machines, manufactured in Cincinnati.
Dave leveraged the new flexo press technology that was ahead of its time. With the machines incorporating helical gears, registration was incredibly tight with minimal to no gear marks or chatter. “He chartered a quest to print the perfect dot. In fact, he adopted an offset mindset within a flexo world – he understood what brands wanted,” notes John McDowell, one of Dave’s three sons and president of McDowell Label.
“The quality was so good, everyone accused Dave McDowell of running offset,” John says.
John, who joined the company in 1997 after selling a thriving, multi-city, fitness club business, initially intended his tenure at McDowell Label to be a short one, a stopover on his way to his next venture. But, as he puts it, “I got bit by the ink bug,” he says, adding, “Around the time I came on board, Dad was considering selling the business. But I was marveling at the way his employees revered and respected him. But his core team was aging and approaching retirement, so he had an exit strategy that was beginning to be put in motion.”
However, there would be no exit at this time. “I said to Dad, ‘Look, you’re still young enough to keep working, and you love what you do. Teach me the business, we’ll roll up our sleeves, put a leg over the saddle and throttle this thing forward,” recalls John.
And forward McDowell Label went.
In addition to reinvigorating the McDowell workforce, the company did the same for its manufacturing technologies. “We’ve always been about innovation and differentiation, driving the business from a brand packaging perspective. When we outgrew the flexo technologies we’d been using, we went with a fleet of Gallus presses, and today – with our specialty being combination printing on multi-subtrates – we use several Gallus and Omet machines. We’ll always be on the bleeding edge of technology, whether it be developing proprietary solutions or investing in new capital equipment.”
Getting the Band Back Together
Upon committing to the company, John McDowell focused on reinvigorating the workforce. And part of the workforce would be the additions of his two older brothers.Dave McDowell is one of the most accomplished label converters in the history of the industry. He is a TLMI Converter of the Year, was TLMI chairman of the Board, and traveled the world for years sharing his expertise and advancing the greater industry.
“With all of his accomplishments, the true pinnacle at the latter part of his career was coming to work with his three boys,” John says.
“We’re family, but I must admit, we do put the word ‘fun’ in dysfunctional,” he jokes. “While working with family can be challenging, it’s also so rewarding. We’ve all grown and matured, and there are no egos – we all have different skillsets and talents, and we’ve made it work, without stepping on one another.
“When we all came together to work with Dad, it was like a reunion after 15+ years apart. We got the band back together,” John says.
He adds, “Working with family certainly has its challenges, but I never experienced anything more rewarding than working with my father and two older brothers. We’re all Scot-Irish – so I assure you that when we don’t agree it’s like Slam Bang Theater. But we would always leave lockstep in stride, with the same pulse and heartbeat toward what we were going to do next. It’s really been a beautiful experience.
“And everyone was on the same page when it came to joining RLG,” he adds. “We had always done things no one else can do. We always were intentional and purposeful about innovation – and these are things that we’re now bringing to the RLG family. Our vision statement – that still exists today, is that we are one company, one team, with one purpose – to provide innovative brand packaging solutions for those who demand excellence.”
The McDowell vision extends to the company’s loyal customers. Explains John, “Our brand-owner customers expect us to challenge them with new innovations; how can they out-position their competition, how they can create more attractive and engaging shelf appeal, and how they can engage the consumer-experience with augmented and experiential packaging. We’ve always been about innovating and differentiating and curating new technologies from a brand packaging perspective.”
With superior quality and innovation being hallmarks of McDowell Label, the company excels in serving markets that value both, including wine, beer and spirits, prestige beauty and cosmetics, sports nutrition/dietary supplements, gourmet foods, household products and more.
30 Companies under 22 Rooftops, a Center of Excellence
For more than three decades of label and packaging converting, McDowell Label has set itself apart from the competition by establishing a culture of innovation and excellence. By joining forces with RLG, McDowell has chosen to move forward with a private equity (PE) firm and ownership group that also sets itself apart from the other large label manufacturing groups.“There were a lot of reasons why we ultimately chose RLG. For one, Resource Label Group is quite different from the other PE-driven firms in our space. Yes, every firm has their own respective value-proposition, and I actually consider many of them friends and professional peers. These other groups, though – sure, they know business – but through our experience of vetting these potential suitors, respectfully speaking, we identified they don’t know this business.
“RLG is focused on attracting the very best in both talent and technology, more so than simply acquiring bandwidth. Resource Label Group has a firm grip on the direction of the label industry and the toolbox, dare I say ‘resources,’ that has been developed internally within the company to effectively integrate all the facilities. It’s an unrivaled game-changer…and yet, there is so much more still to be launched,” says John.
The converters that RLG attracts, acquires and monetizes all possess subject matter expertise, John points out. “They’re all companies with diverse technologies, industry leadership, equipped with cohesive redundancies, and they represent strategic geographical footprints. They have their own brand and market renown.
“While capacity is always important, a lot of PE firms will buy a company solely based on said capacity,” John says. “And the buyer immediately goes in and takes the name off the building and changes the logo. They lose their identity, and the result is cultural and brand erosion. And then you get customer attrition – that’s typically the order in which it goes,” he explains, adding, “When you lose your identity as a company, that affects your human resource, which is your team, and that is a direct conduit with who you do business with. When you lose your identity and the subsequent loss of talent – your human resource – you inevitably will lose customers.
“Yes, you have to have technology and all the horses for the courses, but our industry is still very much relational – and it’s still all about people,” John says.
When looking into leveraging the company, the McDowells felt it was paramount to partner with an investment group that shares its same values and principles.
“Often, based on how my industry peers have lamented with their prior experiences, when capital groups come in and change everything overnight, from systems and processes to brand and people, and it’s done so fast and abrasively, there is no integration – just division and confusion,” he says. “Resource Label Group understands and values the importance of developing and curating strong relationships, internally and externally, while maintaining each facility’s individual brand recognition and identity.”
The decision to join forces with RLG was not a quick one. In fact, it was more than two years in the making. And it came as the McDowells were nearing the end of the long process of Dave McDowell transitioning the company to John.
Dave and John had a long conversation about the future of the business. “We discussed virtually everything – potential dynamics with our family, our amazing team (employees), our roster of long-term, loyal customers, and our trusted supply chain partners.
“We also discussed that given everything that’s happening in the marketplace, that at some point, whether it’s he and I doing it or it happens after the transition, that it’s not going to be a matter of if, but more a matter of when we’ll ultimately leverage the company. I said to him, ‘Knowing that, our market presence, and given the stage of life you’re in, let’s do it now so you can reap the rewards of the lifetime and legacy you’ve built in the business.”
John continues, “We’ve always been a David among Goliaths – everyone thinking we’re many times the size we were – which was by design. And because we’ve always self-funded our business, we had to carefully consider the risks versus rewards in how we judiciously grew the company.
“I said, ‘The rules of the game have changed, and there will come a point in time when the music is going to stop playing – and when it does, not everyone is going to have a seat at the table. Our company is thriving and vibing at a pivotal growth curve, the economy is good, everything is good, and we have tremendous trajectory. These things, in tandem with our innovative technologies, make us a remarkably attractive investment,” he adds.
Resource Label Group was one among a list of six suitors that the McDowells had narrowed down. And once they met with Mike Apperson, RLG’s chief executive officer, it became clear that they’d found the perfect fit.
“Mike is an incredible guy,” John says. “Not only is he astute and cerebral – a critical and creative thinker – he has a great understanding of brand and the importance of culture. I learned that what he really wanted to do with McDowell Label was pour kerosene on the business – take our subject matter expertise and position us to become another Center of Excellence within the RLG family – all the while integrating and parlaying the best practices from both organizations. This was important for many reasons, but especially given that I have a lot of runway left in me. He and I share the same vision for the corpus of the company. We’re 30 companies under 22 rooftops, and we continue to grow.”
An engaging leader, John respects the fact that he now works for someone who appreciates his intimate involvement in the business. He says, “I’m not wired to be a spectator, so I needed to trust that whomever we went with, I would serve an integral role in championing the visibility and growth of the overall company. And 18 months in, they’re fulfilling their campaign promise.
“We hired a general manager to run the day-to-day operations, which allows me to get out from within the business and more on top of the business. I now serve a completely new role. Previously I did a little bit of everything from finance to operations to sales and marketing, and now my role is focused on identifying and cultivating strategic, intrinsic partnerships, new acquisitions, and growing the core of the company. I still love what I do, who I do it with, and who we do it for – we’re still having fun.”
Resource Label Group operates under the mantra of “National Reach. Local Touch.” Across North America, each of the 30 companies within the RLG family bring specialization and vast experience, in addition to redundancy and contingency planning. The facilities work together and can offer brand-owner customers unmatched, comprehensive capabilities, and strategically located facilities.
With the addition of McDowell Label and its winning culture of excellence, RLG’s future is as bright as ever, furthering Dave McDowell’s vision to be the very best.