March 13, 2023

Call 2022 the year of the carve-out.

For Viaflex, formerly Raven Engineered Films, this April marks one year as a separate company from the former Raven Industries Inc., which is now part of CNH Industrial.

In that time, “We’ve not just landed on our feet. We’re off and running,” president and CEO Scott Wickersham said.

That meant standing up multiple functions that previously had been centralized under Raven — IT, human resources, marketing, facilities — while continuing to grow and expand its business lines.

“The positive was we could take the best of what Raven had and bring it forward and create the rest of it ourselves,” Wickersham said. “Our emphasis was to execute well on our carve-out, and we’ve done very, very well.”

Raven Engineered Films was acquired by Illinois-based Industrial Opportunity Partners, and now as Viaflex is an independent, stand-alone business. Its niche is in developing and manufacturing thinner, lighter, stronger polymer film and sheeting solutions that help address application and product challenges across the globe, including:

• Agriculture: feed, grain and silage covers; containment liners and fumigation films.
• Construction: enclosure, vapor barrier and gas barrier films.
• Energy: reliable liners and containment solutions for the gas and oil industries.
• Geo: geomembrane liners and covers to support the environmental sector.
• Industrial: custom solutions for any project.
• Installation: world-class geomembrane liner installation services.

“All three (former Raven) companies are better positioned to unlock the value they bring to the world,” Wickersham said. “I know that’s the case with us and widely believed within Viaflex. We’re stronger now. We found our wings, and we move much, much faster.”

Wickersham spent 12 years at Raven leading both the Aerostar and Engineered Films divisions at different times. He now leads a 450-person team at Viaflex, including nearly 300 in Sioux Falls, which continues to serve as its headquarters at 821 W. Algonquin St. There also are locations in Madison along with Colorado, Texas and Virginia.

“Throughout all of it (2022), we were really intent on trying to manage the business,” he said. “We had people dedicated to managing the business while other people were dedicated to carving out.”

It led to a record-setting year.

“We closed out 2022 with the best year from a financial standpoint and from a production standpoint that we’ve ever done,” he said.

Viaflex also recently began a new production line at a previously idle site in Brandon, focused on making premium-grade resin conduit for fiber optic cable distribution. The conduit products come in various sizes, colors, textures and thicknesses.

“We’re running 24/7 in Brandon and have really taken off, and that market has gone really well,” Wickersham said. “We’ve focused on the Midwest, and we will have customers all over the country buying from us. The biggest advantage is we’re producing conduit in the Upper Midwest, and there is a lot of land in between us and locations that are going to have fiber optics.”

It’s a good example of the synergy achieved with its new ownership, he added.

“We very much understand the polymer science that goes with it, and because of IOP’s ambition and background … with their guidance, we hired people to attack the market, and we are off and running, and it’s really going well. Our relationship with IOP involves a lot of intellectual capital. We had the ability to make products, and they understand the markets and connected us with the right people to make it real.”

The bread-and-butter business of the company — construction, agriculture, geomembrane, energy and industrial markets — have some seasonality and spikes depending on market conditions, but “we’re off to a good start for the year,” Wickersham said. “There’s an intentional slowdown of the economy that the Fed is intent on slowing down and easing inflation, and we’re paying attention. We are not experiencing a significant slowdown, but we’re paying attention and being thoughtful about how the next year goes.”

In the past year, the company has added approximately 100 people and continues to hire, especially to support the Brandon operation.

“We spend a lot of time talking about culture and being transparent and holding people accountable if things aren’t working well,” Wickersham, adding the company spent “a long time to get honed in on” the best way to articulate its purpose, vision, values and mission. The values include:

• Be driven.
• Be respectful.
• Be collaborative.
• Be creative.
• Act with integrity.
• Get stuff done.

“We want a culture where people feel welcome,” Wickersham added. “Our customers, for the most part, wear boots and blue jeans to work, and most of our employees wear boots and blue jeans, so we’re a team that has a high level of respect for that.”

The core of the mission is creating value for customers through differentiated products and services — a strategy Viaflex plans to continue building on in the year ahead.

“Our best opportunities for growth are in the markets we’re already in and the customers we already have,” Wickersham said. “And our approach to sales and marketing is being amplified considerably.”