Over the din of machinery, Dave Spence is leading a media tour of the factory that was once the hub of his plastics empire.
Though he hasn’t worked here in a year, he still sounds like the boss. He greets the workers at Alpha Packaging warmly and by name. He reels off facts, such as the precise number of seconds it takes for a machine to spit out a perfectly formed bottle.
The tour is intended to underscore the business acumen that Spence, the Republican nominee for governor, would bring to state government if voters choose him over the Democratic incumbent, Jay Nixon, in the Nov. 6 election.
“I want to make Missouri the most business-friendly place on the planet,” Spence declares at his campaign rallies.
He has spent more than $4.5 million of his own money to market that message since he began campaigning a year ago. But even some of Spence’s supporters say he is still struggling to clearly define himself.
Recently, Spence made headlines by filing a lawsuit and running a TV spot saying he is “not a banker,” to fend off Nixon’s accusation that Spence profited from the federal bank bailout.
“Spence is going to have a tough climb,” Sen. Brian Munzlinger, R-Williamstown, said as he waited for the gubernatorial candidate to speak at a Republican rally in Jefferson City this week.
Nixon has made regular visits to Munzlinger’s rural northeastern Missouri district, including a deer-hunting trip one year and a stop last week to cut a ribbon at a new grain elevator in Canton.
But residents have little awareness of Spence, Munzlinger said. “Truthfully, they just don’t know him.”
Spence, 54, of Ladue, dove into the race last November when it was unclear whether anyone would challenge Nixon, who is seeking a second, four-year term.
Spence’s Mizzou fraternity brother, Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, had been expected to make the race but bowed out after Spence announced he was running.
For Spence, the timing was perfect.
He ran Alpha Packaging for 26 years before he and the other owners sold it to a private equity firm in 2010 for a reported $260 million. Spence stepped down as president in 2011.
Spence, who has four children with his wife, Suzanne, calls the company his “fifth child.”
Donning an obligatory hairnet, he starts the plant tour by pointing out the variety of plastic bottles that fill a display case in the company's lobby. All shapes and sizes, they are sold to businesses such as Walgreen’s and Bath and Body Works to hold vitamins, shampoo, mouthwash and other products.
It’s not economical to ship an empty bottle more than 600 miles, Spence said. So he lined up capital and bought factories near his customers.
Today, Alpha has plants in seven states, Canada and the Netherlands. The work force has grown from 15 employees to 800. A trade publication called the firm the 18th largest plastics business of its kind.
Scott Chamberlain, 42, got a temporary job at the company in 1990, painting yellow lines on the factory floor. Twenty-two years and several promotions later, he is the shipping supervisor.
Spence is “a dreamer,” Chamberlain said. “He dreams of what he can get and then he goes for it.”
About 260 people work at the low-slung grey building in Overland, Alpha’s headquarters since 2002.
They include Clay Steinbach, 23, who graduated from Ranken Technical College in St. Louis in 2008 and makes $20 an hour as a toolmaker, maintaining aluminum molds.
Spence said employees have full benefit packages. The company even has a scholarship program that is helping about 20 children of employees afford college.
Spence said that because of his experience, he knows how to make the state more business-friendly. He would overhaul civil lawsuit rules to discourage what he considers “frivolous” claims against employers. He also would outlaw agreements that require employees to pay union fees as a condition of employment.
Most neighboring states have adopted “right to work” laws, Spence said, and Missouri should move that direction to be competitive.
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, who introduced Spence at this week’s rally in Jefferson City, said that Spence could set the state on a path for job growth.
“Government doesn’t create jobs, but government can create an atmosphere where people want to create jobs,” Blunt said.
However, that theme got pushed aside recently as Spence battled Nixon’s allegation that Spence profited from the federal bank bailout.
The dispute centers on Spence’s role at St. Louis-based Reliance Bancshares Inc., a bank holding company that received $40 million under the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
Spence joined the company’s board in May 2009, about three months after the bank took the federal money. In April 2010, he took out a $1.1 million loan from Reliance Bank, which was owned by Reliance Bancshares. The loan financed Spence’s vacation home at the Lake of the Ozarks.
Spence later voted with the other board members not to pay the federal money back. He no longer sits on the board.
A Nixon ad alleges that Spence “helped run” the bank, got a $1.1 million “insider loan” and thus, used bailout money “to help himself instead of repaying the taxpayers.”
Spence tried to get Nixon to pull the ad, then sued the governor for defamation of character. He said that as a director, he never "ran" the bank, and that he did nothing wrong in giving the bank his loan business.
“Everybody says, ‘That’s politics,’” Spence said. “I look at it and say, ‘If that’s politics, it needs to change.’”
Nixon’s campaign calls Spence’s suit frivolous.
“We stand by everything in our ads,” said Oren Shur, Nixon’s campaign manager. “The facts may make him uncomfortable but they’re still the facts. Our focus is on his experience with tax dollars.”
Some analysts said Spence’s suit just drew more attention to the sensitive issue and could turn voters off.
George Connor, head of the political science department at Missouri State University, paraphrases Spence's ad as saying: "I’m not a banker, he knows I’m not a banker, I’m suing...because I’m not a banker."
"I don’t think that’s making many inroads,” Connor said.
Republicans have a hard time finding an issue that gets traction against Nixon because he often stakes out the conservative ground, Connor said. That leaves critics to complain about side issues, such as Nixon’s habit of padding his office budget by juggling money from other agencies.
No comments:
Post a Comment