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Columbia Container: ‘The Right Box at the Right Time’ BY STEVE YOUNG
COMPANY: Columbia Container ESTABLISHED: 1998 JOINED AICC: 2014
Photos courtesy of Columbia Container Corp.
PHONE: 410-467-1400 WEBSITE: www.columbiacontainer.net LOCATIONS: Baltimore, Maryland CEO: Brendan Moynihan In the Columbia Container lobby, from left: Columbia Chief Financial Officer Jim Swope; AICC President Michael D’Angelo; and Columbia CEO Brendan Moynihan.
T
he term “elevator speech” has gained some traction in the business world of late, based on the supposition that you had better be able to articulate the value proposition of your enterprise in the short span of an elevator ride. Visit the website of Columbia Container in Baltimore, and you’ll see a model of succinct clarity: “The Columbia Advantage: The right box at the right time.” Brendan Moynihan, CEO, expands: “Columbia Container focuses on providing the cost efficiencies of a manufacturer with the high level of customer service typically found with a distributor.” Moynihan, who started his career in 1986 as a sales representative for Oxford Container in New Oxford,
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BOXSCORE March/April 2021
Pennsylvania, explained that in his years at Oxford, he noticed there were many corrugated manufacturers that focused on high-volume, cost-efficient production runs and distributors who focused on customer service. “We saw a market opportunity for a company that could combine both these characteristics, and that has been our operating philosophy here at Columbia Container,” he says. Rich History in a Rich Market Feeling the tug of entrepreneurship, Moynihan left Oxford Container in 1998 and, with his partner, Jim Swope, purchased Columbia Container. Swope, now chief financial officer of Columbia, was a lifelong banker who left the
financial world to start a career in the corrugated industry. Columbia emerged on the partners’ radar screen when Don Sturtz, who had been in the corrugated business locally for more than three decades, was looking to sell the company. As Moynihan tells it, Sturtz named the company Columbia Container because that was the name of the first corrugated box company he worked at—one with an interesting connection to local Baltimore lore. “The original Columbia Container had been destroyed in a fire but had employed both Don and legendary Baltimore Colts Quarterback Johnny Unitas as salesmen,” Moynihan explains. “As we’ve heard the story told, Johnny worked at Columbia in his early years
