Royal is a specialty manufacturer of advanced composite products. We often work with the customer to design parts for optimum strength and robust manufacture. We are a low cost "outsource manufacturer" for many large companies.
Royal employs over 95 people, 12 in engineering and product development.
Royal Plastic Mfg., Inc. was founded in 1949.
For additional information on any of the services or manufactured composite products available at Royal Plastic click any of the following links:
Company History
At the end of World War II King Plastic filed for bankruptcy. One of its engineers, Harley Cole, moved to Minden, Nebraska and started a company to allow Harley ‘to earn a living making plastic parts like soap dishes.’ He had a company of 3-4 people when in about 1954, according to local legend, a group of engineers from McDonnell Aircraft were boating in nearby Harlan County Lake when their boat developed a serious leak. They somehow found Harley who fixed their boat. With ensuing conversation they talked Harley into bidding to make spare parts for McDonnell.
Royal was making fiberglass reinforced plastics by 1954 and by 1958 we no longer made ‘plastic’ parts. We were in the composites business exclusively.
Harley never intended to build a big company; he like innovating and didn’t like selling or dealing with employees. He developed heart trouble and died in 1978. At that time the M. C. Gill Corp. acquired Royal and Stephen Gill ran this division until 1992. In 1979 he landed Royal’s second customer, increasing the sales effort. The parts were primarily fiberglass covers and ducts for military aircraft.
In 1993 Phillip Gill moved to Nebraska to run the company, bringing with him business from California that doubled Royal’s size to 18 employees. Royal then embarked on a long, slow program of reinvesting profits and developing technology and acquire equipment to allow it to compete in the structural composites arena. With growth Gill hired his own people and the company culture began to change; this made all the difference. Royal bought an autoclave and began making antennae for GPS IIa global positioning satellite in 1996. The focus was landing jobs requiring more sophisticated quality systems. By 2004 Royal was qualified to make structural graphite/epoxy parts for Boeing. We had over 50 customers that year.
In 2006 we developed an operating system we believe superior to the MRP/ERP software running most companies. In 2008 Phil Gill began selling Royal to the employees, deciding he did not want outside ownership of Royal. In the year 2010 Royal completed an expansion with 52,000 sf of building; employment reached 100 with 5 autoclaves and all the support equipment to allow us to compete in structural composites.
Why the name Royal Plastic if we don’t make Plastic?
Every marketing consultant, every book on marketing, has told us to change our name. It seems to us that is reason enough not to change it. We call ourselves Royal and leave it at that.
Mission
Every company has essentially the same mission: Show a profit while following all laws and hopefully doing a little good for mankind.
