Samsill Corporation celebrated fifty years of business on April 1, 2003. The history of the company can be traced back to a cornfield south of Seymour, Texas, twelve years before it was officially formed as the dream of two young brothers, Cecil and Tirey Samsill. Although neither knew what their dream would mean on that hot July day in 1941, sixty-three years later, the employees and their families, suppliers and valued customers are grateful for their vision and commitment to success.
The Samsill brothers grew up on the family farm during the Depression years. Cecil, then sixteen years old, and his twelve year old brother, Tirey, were hard at work harvesting the corn and maize that would feed the family and livestock during the coming winter. Although neither was big enough to see over the stalks, they diligently followed the mule-drawn wagon down the rows, stripping the stalks and throwing the feed in the wagon.
After several trips back to the barn to unload, they found the shade of an old mesquite tree to enjoy an afternoon snack and a brief break from their labors. Cecil remembers it was there in the blistering heat of the Texas summer that they decided, “there must be a better way to make a living than farming”. He and Tirey made a solemn vow right then and there that when they grew up they would go into business together, “and it sure wouldn’t be farming in Seymour, Texas!”
In addition to the scorching heat of the summer harvest, times were economically difficult for the large family with twenty-three children. “We were poor, and when I say poor, I mean poor. But we were too poor to know the difference.” In spite of the hardships, life on the Samsill farm was rich in family values and strong work ethics. It was here the core values of the Samsill brothers were cemented.
On December 7, 1941, life changed for the Samsill brothers, as it did for all Americans, when the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and America entered World War II. Cecil, at age 16 facing the draft after graduation, chose to leave school and see what the world was like beyond Seymour, Texas. Many years later, in 2002, the State of Texas honored its veterans who had served their country during World War II by conferring on them their high school diplomas, and so, sixty-one years after leaving home, Cecil received his diploma from Seymour High School.
Cecil moved to Burkburnett, Texas, where his older brothers, Ernest and Roy, gave him a job in their bakery. After bakery jobs in several Texas towns, Cecil witnessed an accident which resulted in an amputated arm and his decision to leave the baking business and join his friend Jack Rowland in California in April of 1943.
Once in California, Cecil received his induction notice from the Army. After basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Paratrooper “Jump” School in Fort Benning, Georgia, he was granted a thirty-day furlough. He returned to Wichita Falls to see the “love of his life”, Miss Jean Cope, and Cecil and Jean were married on April 4, 1944, three days before his nineteenth birthday. Their marriage has been further blessed with four daughters, seven grandsons, a granddaughter, three great-grandsons and two great-granddaughters.
After completing his military service, seeing action in the European Theatre of Operations including the Battle of the Bulge, Cecil was honorably discharged on December 23, 1945, and settled in Los Angeles where he went to work for the National Plastic Company, NAPLASCO, in 1946. It was there that he learned the “plastics business”, which was still in its infant stages. While at National, he noticed a folding machine sitting idle and after inquiring, found that no one knew how to run the machine. Working all night, he figured out for himself how the machine operated and learned to make plastic sheet protectors. This kind of initiative led to his promotion to plant manager.
Meanwhile, his younger brother, Tirey spent much of his high school time involved in sports, playing football, basketball and running track at Seymour High School and developing his life-long competitive nature. After graduation, he attended Pepperdine University in California where he also played football. Tirey then went on to a business partnership in the excavation business with Melvin Delzer in Selby, South Dakota. In March of 1951, Tirey was drafted and served at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland until his discharge in March of 1953.
Immediately after his discharge Tirey drove from Maryland to Los Angeles to meet Cecil and finalize their business plans. With military service behind them, the Samsill brothers decided it was time to pursue the vow they’d made in that cornfield back home twelve years before. By this time Cecil had been working for six years at National Plastic and was successful in his job as their plant manager. While it was difficult to leave this secure environment, he knew that there would probably not be a better time for them to step out on their own. With Cecil’s knowledge of plastics manufacturing and Tirey’s competitive nature, the brothers returned to Texas, this time to Fort Worth, and began the preliminary steps required to start their own business.
Licenses and permits were obtained and April 1, 1953 was declared the official opening day of Samsill Brothers Plastic Company. The company’s first location was in downtown Fort Worth at 106 West 15th Street in a rented space behind the Richelieu Bar, where the Fort Worth Water Gardens are located today. Plastic badges and protectors were hand-folded and molded in an oven, and a domestic sewing machine was used for stitched products. From that first location, the company moved to the garage of the home Cecil, Jean, their two oldest daughters, Celia and Mary, and Tirey shared. The garage had a dirt floor, which proved to be a very difficult environment for producing clear plastic products. Their next move was to a home with a cement garage floor, where a neighbor’s complaint about the noise in the quiet residential area prompted another move in 1955 to rented space on Nashville Street.
Business was so good that Tirey soon had to quit his second job at Brakefield Electric. The business was not the only thing to experience growth and excitement. In 1954 there was an addition to the Samsill family when Tirey fell in love with Loretta Culpepper and they were married on October 9, 1954. Tirey and Loretta were blessed with a son Mark and a daughter Susan, who each have three children of their own.
In an early 1956 newspaper article and advertisement, the company had adopted “Chrystal Clear” as a trademark and had over 165 stock products, mostly manufactured from clear plastics. Samsill Bros. big break came in 1956 when they were awarded a GSA contract to make 6 million sheet protectors for the U.S. government. According to Cecil, this was the most significant factor in its accelerated growth. The contract forced the company to invest in automated equipment to handle the volume of business it generated. The Samsill brothers worked with Don Reeves’ machine shop on developing high speed folding equipment that would convert raw material into finished folded product. They could produce sizes from 2.5” x 1.5” all the way up to newspaper size, 24” x 18.5”. They eventually bought the machine shop and brought it into Samsill as CDT (Cecil, Don, and Tirey) Corporation.
As their business grew, they expanded until they had three rented spaces on Nashville. The brothers bought their first building in 1958 when an old ice house across the street from their rented properties became available. Once this building was converted and a second story added to accommodate RF sealing equipment, the growing company had 9,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
The fifties and early sixties were busy years for the young company. The first products were folded or sewn and included shop cardholders, menu covers, and protectors of all sizes. Cecil and Tirey’s sister-in-law, Loveda, was the company’s first “sales force”, selling menu covers to local restaurants. One of the first customers was Massey’s Restaurant on 8th Avenue in Fort Worth. Loveda was joined in the early sales efforts by Leonard Hickock, who had been a salesman for NAPLASCO, and Roland Starkey, a school friend of Tirey’s, who represented Samsill as independent sales representatives.
Other early customers included Fort Worth Restaurant Supply and Gernsbacher’s for menu covers, and Panther City Office Supply and Majestic Reproduction for sheet protectors and badges. The company enjoyed a reputation for quality and diversity in its products. Customers knew that they could go to Samsill Brothers with near impossible requests and many stories are told of the impeccable service Cecil and Tirey gave to their customers.
During these years of growth the company enjoyed many “firsts”. The company’s first employee was Harold Campbell, and the first catalog was printed in 1957. The first sealing machine was purchased in 1960, and Samsill is believed to be among the first companies to produce a sealed vinyl ring binder. Samsill also made the plastic holder for the first credit card from Humble Oil Company.
By the early sixties the company was rapidly outgrowing the building on Nashville Street and the brothers began searching for land that would enable the company to grow and expand for the future. In 1963, Cecil and Tirey purchased the twelve-and-a-half acres of land that the company now occupies. The new building was completed with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on November 13, 1964. Samsill Brothers Plastic Company occupied their new building consisting of 20,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 5,000 square feet of office space, built at a cost of $200,000 and described in the Fort Worth Press as “the most up-to-date in the industry”. From the mid-sixties through the early nineties the company experienced tremendous physical growth with five major expansions to the original facility. Samsill now occupies over a quarter of a million square feet of manufacturing and office space in Fort Worth.
Cecil continued to manage the production operations and Tirey managed the office and sales. At that time there were no “titles” assigned to either of them. When Cecil was asked about this he said, “We were just big brother and little brother”. After moving to the new building they realized that if the company was to grow successfully they would need additional help. James F. Adams was hired from American Beauty Book Cover in Dallas to assist in purchasing and manufacturing operations.
The 1970’s would prove to be an important time for establishing the company’s position and recognition nationally in the office products industry. Although many factors contributed to this success, several stand out during this period. First of all, sales representation throughout the country was set up using independent organizations. In addition to this, sales programs were implemented that offered committed customers the opportunity to buy sealed, sewn, and folded products at contract pricing from a single source. Since Samsill’s diversity had been developed in earlier years, the company was able to leverage its strength in manufacturing. Another important step was national wholesale catalog support through Stationer’s Distributing Company, also headquartered in Fort Worth.
The company began to move rapidly from a “made to order” custom house to a “stocking” everyday supplier for the office products industry. At the same time, the company continued to be an important supplier for printers, advertising specialty distributors and OEM customers such as Hallmark Cards.
In 1972, Samsill Brothers Plastic Company, “big brother and little brother” incorporated, with Cecil as President, focusing on production operations and Tirey as Vice-President, responsible for sales and administrative operations.
In 1977, Cecil sold his half of the business to Tirey and retired on July 1st. Tirey continued to run the company “with the help of many faithful and dedicated employees”. To reward those employees, the company established an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), and gave the employees ownership of nearly twenty percent of the company. After Cecil’s retirement, Samsill Brothers Plastic Company was re-named Samsill Corporation, with Tirey as its second President.
The 1980’s continued the trend of Samsill’s national recognition in the office products industry, with the company’s executives actively involved in industry leadership through organizations such as the National Office Products Association, Wholesale Stationers Association, and the Office Products Manufacturer’s Association. Additional national wholesale support came from United Stationers during the eighties, followed by S.P. Richards in the nineties. The introduction of its first line of business accessories entered Samsill into a major new product category, and Classic Collection was registered in 1985, giving the company a nationally recognized brand name. Samsill was now a major player in the office products industry.
Following Tirey’s courageous battle with cancer and untimely death on July 31, 1989, his wife, Loretta, inherited his interest in the company and appointed their son, Mark, as the third President of Samsill, a position he held for the next five years.
The late Eighties and the early Nineties began to see a dramatic shift in the sale and distribution of office products. The success of wholesale clubs and the office products “superstore” phenomenon began to have a tremendous impact on the 13,000 independent, family-owned office product dealerships that once dominated the sale of office products to corporate America, with the dealer base ultimately shrinking to approximately 3,000. The industry was going through major changes and consolidation, not only in the distribution channels, but the manufacturing channels as well.
Samsill leadership knew that significant changes would be required to remain and grow as a player in the new millennium. At the beginning of the 1995 fiscal year, Mark appointed James Bankes as President and Chief Executive Officer of Samsill Corporation and focused on his role as Chairman of the Board. James, as the fourth President and first non-family member, would be responsible for the ongoing operation of the company. In that same year Samsill became a member of the Hogan Quality Consortium, a two-year program to start Samsill on its journey to becoming a truly world class company. This proved to be an important move as it established strategies for propelling the company to a new level.
In 1998, Samsill entered a partnership with David Liu, a longtime associate in importing product from Asia. The result was a new joint venture factory located in Quingdao, China, for manufacturing leather and vinyl business accessories. In 1999, Samsill formed another partnership with the Rihan family in Mexico City to create Samsill de Mexico, a manufacturer and importer of ring binders, sheet protectors and related products.
Throughout this period Samsill was busy updating technology and operational systems, focusing on the continuous improvement and automation of the plant in Fort Worth. Sales distribution continued to grow with expansion into the college bookstore market and the custom loose-leaf business. American Beauty Custom Products, a separate custom business formed in 1991, was acquired as Samsill Custom Products Division.
As the new century began Samsill developed initiatives for utilization of the Internet. A unique website for on-line design and ordering of custom products was developed in 2001, and a new Samsill corporate website was launched in 2003.
The history of Samsill Corporation abounds with behind the scene stories that have made the company what it is today; but the core of its growth, the foundation on which the company builds its future is the commitment and values of Cecil and Tirey Samsill. It is that binding commitment of the last fifty years that Samsill Corporation celebrates today. The Samsill family credits their faith in God, along with many wonderful employees, suppliers, and customers as the forces that have sustained the company through good times and bad and that will drive it through the next fifty years.