Neenah-based conveyor company Pack Air Inc. has kept things moving for more than 40 years, with origins in air conveyance that remain a unique specialty of the firm to this day.
Created by the late Randy McCarry, who was well connected in the paper industry, Pack Air started with serving that particular sector of consumer packaged goods manufacturing. But today Pack Air’s air tables will move everything from a roll of toilet paper to a patio door assembly.
Picture a “giant air hockey table,” says General Manager Mike Sohn, who adds that the advantage of air conveyance is that it requires no moving parts: “There is no conveyor chain to wear out, no sprockets, no belts.”
But fast forward a few years after its 1984 founding, and Pack Air started filling demand from manufacturers to move ever larger objects — even enormous metal castings and architectural features that simply won’t float. That’s when it started going beyond air into developing all manner of custom conveyance systems for customers throughout the U.S. and Canada, and today it moves just about everything. In 2024, Pack Air completed a job that featured a full mile of conveyor belts.
“We are the conveyor experts. They are the experts at making toilet paper … or shampoo or whatever,” Sohn says. “We are supposed to be the ones who can tell them how to get this thing from point A to point B … flip it, flop it, turn it, twist it. Every single thing we do here is customized to that customer’s exact needs.”
Sohn admits “some of the requests we get are kind of odd, but those are the ones that are the most fun.” He describes the team of about 55 Pack Air employees under second-generation President Robert McCarry as experienced problem solvers. And you’d be surprised, Sohn adds, how similar the principles are behind conveying a water bottle and conveying a 10,000-pound piece of steel.
Sohn says Pack Air’s customization is both a feature and a bug.
“[It’s] more difficult to market the product in general because of the custom nature. Our website is full of examples of what we do, right? But a lot of people … will just go, ‘well, that’s not really what I’m looking for’ and they’ll move on,” Sohn says. “We’ll take their ideas. If we’re even close, call us up.”
Sohn says retirements up and down the supply chain have changed the way Pack Air has marketed itself, and reaching customers today presents new challenges; nearly three years ago the company brought Marshall Stanelle on board as a marketing assistant. With many customers no longer even doing business by phone, Stanelle has cemented Pack Air’s digital strategy.
Last year that digital strategy included a bid for the title of “Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin,” which is determined via online vote; Pack Air advanced to the contest’s Sweet 16. Stanelle says Pack Air saw a noteworthy increase in web traffic during the contest, which was exactly the goal. Deciding which unique Pack Air innovation to nominate was perhaps the hardest part.
They ultimately chose the turntable swing gate, which was created last year for a customer that needed to sometimes move fork trucks through a warehouse that had an extensive production line. The final product includes an area scanner to detect movement toward the line — even a bird or insect flying through, if tuned sensitively enough, Sohn says — that shuts down the line and safely swings a gate open to allow passage.
These are the types of problems Pack Air loves to solve, Sohn says, adding that a nonstop, customer-driven R&D process has kept the company moving in the right direction, even amid tariff and supply chain concerns and changing leadership in the consumer packaged goods industry.
The more custom, the better, Sohn says. There’s no catalog and no limits: “Don’t be afraid to run something crazy past us. We’re good at crazy.”
On the web: packairinc.com
