Morrison Container Handling Solutions Opens New Building with Ceremonial Ribbon Cutting

Local officials join in the celebration to honor significant investment in economy of Chicago Southland

Glenwood, IL - To celebrate its recently completed 100,000 square foot expansion, Morrison Container Handling Solutions hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony on September 16, 2022, to celebrate the support of their “community” while commemorating this significant investment in the Chicago Southland.

An example of this community support was exhibited by the speakers at the event: Robin Kelly, U.S. Congresswoman, Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Board President, Donna Miller, Cook County Commissioner, Ron Gardiner, Glenwood Village Mayor, Tom Keon, Chancellor Purdue Northwest, Jim Pittas, President PMMI and Mollie Dowling, Executive Director, OAI, along with additional government officials and esteemed professionals from community.

When Morrison moved from its location in South Holland to Glenwood in 1995, founder Nick Wilson purchased this 22,000 square foot facility. From there, under the leadership of Nick and CEO Nancy Wilson, the company has tripled in size in the last 10 years and needed more space. After purchasing two other buildings on the same street, there still wasn’t enough to house the growing workforce of over 110 employees.

“In 2020 we took on a project for Thermo Fisher Scientific to design, manufacture, and integrate 31 production lines to sort, fill, cap, and label COVID-19 test kits,” Nancy said. “Thankfully, the Village of Glenwood helped us secure more rental space quickly but operating in four buildings wasn’t a long-term solution. It was clear we needed to make a significant expansion so with the help of Cook County and the Village, we took on this 80,000 square foot expansion. Glenwood is very business friendly, and we are happy we were able to find a solution to improve our capacity for our customers and continue with our record growth.”

This new facility is a testament to the power of connecting communities. Through partnerships with Cook County, the Village of Glenwood, PMMI, OAI, Purdue Northwest, the Calumet Manufacturing Industry Sector Partnership, and Southland Development Authority, Morrison has been given an opportunity to flourish and give back to the local community.

“Through the many partnerships we thankful to be part of, our business has been able to thrive and provide more opportunity to our employees,” Nancy said. “Community and education are in our DNA. Nick played in integral role in developing the first four-year degree mechatronics program to Purdue Northwest and has only extended the reach through partnerships with PMMI, which is only one of the many examples of how Morrison strives to connect groups to being growth to the packaging industry and Chicago Southland.”

With PMMI, many employees serve on committees to advance packaging. Nancy is a board member while also serving as Chair of their Future Workforce committee, dedicated to training and educating future leaders on opportunities in packaging and bridging the skills gap for skilled manufacturing jobs. All of this and more is just a sample of how invested Morrison has been in pushing the industry and community forward.

As Nancy stated, “magic happens when you connect your communities.” An example given was Morrison connecting OAI, Purdue Northwest, CMISP, and PMMI to create a field service apprenticeship program that filled open roles and provided opportunities for advancement to others who might not have received it otherwise.

“It’s really exciting to see where we’ve been, where we’re going, and think of what is to come,” Nick said. “This expansion is a testament to our people and what they’ve helped us grow to over 51 years. Our new space starts another exciting new time at Morrison, and I can’t wait to see what our team does with it.”

Morrison is proud to be a manufacturing operation in Glenwood and feels a strong responsibility to this significant multi-million-dollar investment in Glenwood and Chicago’s Southland community. This expansion enables the company to bring more jobs to the area, as well as increased capacity to handle its growing business, all while providing more opportunity to the local area.

“We’ve always been proud of our people and our young team of leaders, so it’ll be fun to see what we can do with this space,” Nancy said. “Seeing everyone back in one building is a full-circle moment, and I love being able to walk the floor and see our whole team working together on different projects and thinking of what’s next for Morrison’s next 50 years.”

ABOUT MORRISON CONTAINER HANDLING SOLUTIONS 

Morrison Container Handling Solutions celebrated its 51st anniversary on May 1, 2022. Since 1971, the company has prided itself on providing the best solutions in container handling and is excited to mark this momentous occasion in its history. 

Founded by President Nick Wilson, Morrison Container Handling Solutions is well known in the packaging industry for developing customer-focused, simple, and innovative solutions for container handling needs. The company was started by Wilson to provide superior bottle handling parts and timing screws and has now grown to be recognized as the source for innovative container-focused handling solutions, even for the most difficult rigid or semi-rigid containers. Since its inception, Morrison has provided solutions for companies within the United States and internationally.  Morrison is well-known industry-wide for attentive service to a wide variety of customers’ container handling needs – always with Support Built In®, the company’s promise to deliver quality products and support them 24/7, from initial concept to years after installation. 

Continuing the legacy Nick’s son, Chris Wilson, has been with Morrison for more than 30 years and is now President.  In 2011, Nick recruited his wife, Nancy Wilson, to bring her 25 years of Ford Motor Company corporate marketing and leadership experience to the team. In 2013, Nancy became owner and CEO of Morrison and oversees daily operations.  

At Morrison Container Handling Solutions, we believe in every human’s right to be treated with respect and equality, and the right to live without fear.