Ed Laird’s company was in trouble a decade ago. And his health was suffering, too.
He’d spent 30 years building Huntington Beach-based Coatings Resource, which made thousands of paints that adhere to plastics, his most famous client Mattel Inc. Laird was known in Orange County “as the guy who made the paint for Barbie’s lips.”
Then Mattel outsourced the work to China, a move that led to a notorious 2007 scandal involving Barbie dolls and Toy Story and Hot Wheel cars coated with toxic lead paint.
Laird’s other work also dried up, and he sold three of his four buildings in a struggle to survive, cutting employment from a high of 150 to less than 25.
Worse, he suffered a stroke.
“I was 65, facing bankruptcy and didn’t have a cent to my name,” recalled Laird, now 75. “I had worked for 40 years and thought, ‘I’m going downhill.’”
Instead, he fought his way back uphill.
Laird sold some proprietary technology and the name of his company to PPG Industries Inc., the world’s largest coatings maker, changing his company name to Laird Coatings Corp.
He forged an alliance with PPG that has gone so well, the two companies are investing $14 million in a nearby building to create a sophisticated painting system. Laird projects annual revenue will more than double next year from $10 million. He’s hired about 30 employees this year for a total of 100. Son Jeff, a “genius” according to his dad, is president and runs the daily business.
Barbie is long gone. The company now makes coatings for a variety of products, such as ski goggles, plastic mats and steel vehicle wheels. When asked for which auto manufacturer, Laird smiled quietly and said, “All of them.”
“They’ve all been here to approve this plant to make sure we can make it,” he said. “The business is going straight up.”
No Doubt
Laird is well-known in certain business circles. He’s the longest-serving member, at 35 years, on the Orange County Boy Scouts board of directors, including a stint as chairman. It was through the organization that he became acquainted decades ago with Rex Tillerson, who went on to become chief executive of ExxonMobil and is now U.S. secretary of state. He also served for eight years as chairman of Huntington Beach’s Bolsa Chica Conservancy because he’s interested “in saving what’s left of our small wetlands.”
In the 1990s, he helped combine the Orange County Chamber of Commerce and the Industrial League to form the Orange County Business Council, for which he served as environmental committee chairman for 11 years.
“You never were in any doubt where Ed stood on the issues,” recalled business council Chief Executive Lucy Dunn, who’s known Laird for 25 years. “Ed is known for his passion.”
Midwest Boy
Laird’s story is the classic tale of a Midwesterner turned Southern California entrepreneur.
He was born in Detroit, grew up in the Hazel Park suburb, and graduated from Wayne State University with a degree in chemistry.
The lanky Laird, who has an aw-shucks manner like his hero, Ronald Reagan, started out with a local automotive paint company before moving to Southern California, landing in 1965 at aircraft paint firm Andrew Brown Co., which had factories in Seattle, Georgia and Texas, in addition to Los Angeles.
“I was the chief chemist,” he said matter-of-factly.
When asked how a 30-year-old could reach such a high executive position, Laird said he was successful at reformulating paint to meet stricter air-quality requirements that were being implemented in California.
Then he became fascinated by painting plastic, which was then an emerging industry and much more challenging than other surfaces, like steel. Andrew Brown suggested he start his own company, which he did in 1974.
“Brown was interested in painting the whole airplane, and I was interested in painting plastics,” Laird said. “We shook hands. Brown didn’t invest except for some pots and mixers.”
Flourishing Business
Laird employed his business philosophy of selling coatings to the biggest company in an industry with the idea that their competitors would soon follow. He made coatings for Sony televisions, Apple computers and Oakley sunglasses, in addition to Barbie dolls.
“We flourished for a lot of years,” he said.
In the early 1980s, he formed an engineering unit to help customers meet air-quality regulations. He said he was early in realizing the toxicity of lead in paint and never used it.
“I don’t allow leaded pigments in my facility so my tinters cannot make that mistake” of putting it into paint, he said. “We’ve never had a breach happen in 35 years.”
He often clashed with the South Coast Air Quality Management District over its interpretation of state and federal regulations that he said hampered manufacturing. Sometimes government regulators seized file cabinets full of his records when they accused him of violating the rules.
The manufacturing environment has actually improved in the past five years, Laird said. The rules have become boilerplate so that manufacturers understand them better and can implement the correct technologies. He said regulators now realize manufacturers don’t create as large of a percentage of the state’s pollution as once believed.
“Today it’s much easier to formulate, because the technology is up to date and the AQMD is a lot more reasonable because they now know where the pollutants are coming from.”
Furthermore, regulators now understand their rules have forced some manufacturers to leave California, Laird said.
“They realized they’ve lost business. They use more common sense towards regulations.”
China Factor
In the 2000s, after the business slowed and Mattel shifted its coatings to China, Laird owned only his original factory after selling most of his buildings in order to stay afloat.
“I’m a chemist; I’m not a very smart businessman. I sold the buildings. I should have kept the buildings and sold the business,” he said dryly.
Laird credited his company’s nimbleness and his alliance with PPG for helping it through the tough period.
“If a customer says, make me a hundred gallons, we can ship it in two or three days. PPG needs six weeks. In California, you have to respond quickly because there is so much competition.”
Among his competitors are famous brands like Sherwin-Williams, Valspar Corp. and ZkzoNobel N.V.
‘Trained Color Eyes’
Laird proudly gave a visitor a tour of his two buildings, 15,000 and 30,000 square feet respectively, where the smell of paint dominates the air. One floor has several 500-gallon mixers that look like gigantic versions of “something your mother would make a cake in.” The machines can mix for hours on end to separate particulates to as fine of a powder as possible, something Laird said helps paint last longer.
Several of his staff members have “trained color eyes,” or the ability to distinguish among colors, and the company is “easily” capable of making 20,000 different colors.
“Color is still the magic product,” Laird said. “You got to match that product, or you are in trouble.”
To protect the environment, he has several features, such as curbs, inside the factory that limit spills from seeping out of the building. He said he knew that underground tanks can leak more quickly because of California’s corrosive soil, so when he bought his first building, he made it a point to put his tanks above ground so as to make sure his property stayed environmentally pristine. He now has 14 paint storage tanks, which range from 1,000 to 2,000 gallons each.
Laird showed an electric room that’s isolated from the remainder of the plant in order to prevent fires. It cost him $250,000 to build it 20 years ago.
“I call that room my condo since I bought that instead of a condo,” he said.
At the new building, a state-of-the-art electric system cost a cool $1 million.
Good Investment
As he walked around his factory space, Laird introduced many of his workers by their first names, saying some have been with the company for up to 30 years. One said he has three brothers who work there.
Laird said he’s bullish on the future of manufacturing in California.
“Unfortunately, it’s not labor-based anymore. It’s more technology-based. We’re getting a robot for this plant. We’re getting a color-matching system. That will take five jobs.”
His expenditure on the new factory “is every bit of my retirement.” When asked what his wealth manager thinks, he said the adviser said it’s a good investment because, “10 years ago I was broke,” Laird laughed.
After his first wife, Sandi, died of cancer in 2001, Laird, a father of three boys, married Patty, and they now have many grandchildren. He spends his free time hiking, boating at Lake Arrowhead and volunteering with the local groups.
Laird is still involved with his company, waking up at 5 a.m. on the day of the interview for this story to make sure a malfunctioning fire alarm system was being properly maintained by an outside contractor.
He retains the title of chief executive, even though he doesn’t have his own office. Instead, he sometimes uses the office of the general manager or the conference room.
“I’m 75, and I am trying to retire.”
