Holland LP riding the rails to success

Founded during the Great Depression, and now smack in the middle of the Great Recession, Holland LP is still on track and showing no signs of slowing, the Southtown Star reports. But that should come as no surprise because that is exactly what Holland LP does best - keep things, or more specifically, trains, on track.

The Crete, Ill.-based
company, celebrating 75 years in business, specializes in manufacturing
railroad parts and testing equipment to ensure trains are stable and railroad
tracks are smooth and aligned. It contracts with large metropolitan commuter
rail, such as Metra and the Chicago Transit Authority.

It also contracts with
large railroads such as Union Pacific and BNSF for those services, as well as
railcar cleaning and repair, locomotive cleaning and repair and rail welding.
On top of all that, Holland sells dozens of seemingly mundane railcar parts (Need
a crossbar liner or an air hose support?), and makes a pretty penny along the
way. The company has about 500 employees – about 100 of those are based in Crete
– and boasts $100 million in annual sales.

Holland’s president of 23
years, Phil Moeller, still talks about the business with as much excitement as
a boy with a new train set. "I’m just really optimistic about the future
of Holland Corp.; the railroad industry is just a great place to be right
now," he said.

His optimism is partly
reflected in the fact that Holland is looking for more employees, with 42
openings listed recently on the company’s Web site.

"Oh, yeah, we’re
hiring," Moeller said. "We’re continually looking for people. We’re
very lucky to continue to grow."

Moeller said Holland has
always searched for new and better ways to do things. A short company film
tells of FBI agents attending Holland dinners during the Cold War when Holland
was working with a Soviet company to develop its signature Mobile Flash-Butt
welding equipment. It got so difficult to work with their Russian counterpart
that Holland employees had to reverse engineer the machinery based on diagrams.

The film also shows
company executives reminiscing about one employee who used to search trash bins
at rail yards to find out what parts railroad companies used the most.

"We’re interested in
finding how to do things in a better way, in a unique way," Moeller said.
"We’re not interested in doing what everybody else is doing."

In addition to
maintaining its own success, Holland has been winning friends in its relatively
new home of Crete. The company moved there in 1998 from Chicago Heights.

Melissa Burda, of Crete-Monee
School District 201-U, said Holland was one of the founding members of the
district’s Business-Education Partnership program, and has even
"adopted" Crete Elementary School by sending Holland vice president
Jim Morgan to teach students life skills, such as honesty and responsibility. The
company even invites students to take field trips to the wetlands on company
property. There, the kids can observe plant life and animal life and collect
soil samples to take back to school and observe under microscopes.

Burda says Holland has
also been generous about donating books and school supplies when the school was
in need.

"They’ve just been
an asset to the school district, and we’re extremely happy to have the
relationship that we do with them," she said.

Crete Village
Administrator Tom Durkin calls Holland a "great corporate citizen."

"They work closely
with the village, above and beyond what you’d see from most companies," he
said.