As much as his approach puts him at odds with conventional economic wisdom, Keller can also seem at odds with himself—a registered Republican who calls for more regulation of industry; a plastics maker who speaks out against U.S. reliance on fossil fuels; a nonunion employer whose wages and benefits are a model for the region. But, fueled by these contradictions, he is pioneering a model for the next wave of American manufacturing—and maybe a new way of thinking about business.
Although Cascade Engineering has a Grand Rapids mailing address, its Michigan campus is in the township of Cascade—across the road from Paragon Die & Engineering, a manufacturer that Keller's father, Fred M. Keller, bought in 1962 for a dollar and made a leading manufacturer of molds for plastic auto parts. Keller Sr. ran the company until he retired in 1999 at age 89, inspiring his son with an expansive sense of a business's obligation to workers and society. It's something of a West Michigan trademark—in Grand Rapids, the names of philanthropic business leaders are imprinted on the civic landscape through the buildings they commissioned, among them the Fred M. Keller Engineering Laboratories at Grand Valley State University. And the companies they built—Steelcase, Herman Miller, Amway—are still here, too.
As his father was, Keller is very much a public figure. He has counseled political leaders, led economic development efforts, endowed programs at local colleges, and donated considerable sums to local philanthropies, individually and through Cascade. In many ways, Keller is a throwback to an earlier generation of business leaders who remained devoted to their communities even as their businesses expanded and developed interests around the world.
Keller has also been influenced by his involvement in the Methodist Church. "This is a place where business leaders still go to church and talk about spiritual issues," Keller says of his hometown. "It's a matter of being grounded in principles and carrying them out."
A commitment to sustainability is a widely shared principle. Grand Rapids is home to the nation's first LEED-certified YMCA and art museum. The city's mayor, George Heartwell, has set the goal of switching to 100 percent renewable power by 2020, and the city has been recognized as a center of expertise in sustainability by the United Nations and the most sustainable midsize city by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Siemens. Meanwhile, Grand Rapids's jobless rate stands at 9.4 percent, compared with 10.4 percent for Michigan as a whole.
Parking his Prius outside Cascade's West Plant, Keller dons a pair of safety glasses before entering to a rock-star welcome from the 40 employees on the first shift. The plant is clean and brightly lit, noisy but not deafening. As forklifts beep and spin, teams of men and women on the first of three daily shifts are assembling dash mats, acoustical automobile components that insulate a vehicle's interior from engine noise. One part of the team pulls molded black panels from a large press, then hands them off to colleagues who use hand-held sonic welders to attach a sound-absorbing pad. The finished parts are added to a growing stack destined for GM, Ford, and Chrysler.
Over the past decade or so, Keller has refocused all of Cascade's business units around the dual themes of reducing customers' use of oil and helping them move to zero waste. In the auto-parts unit, efforts have been focused on the former, mostly by engineering plastic components to serve as lightweight substitutes for components made of heavier materials. The dash mats are a prime example of this.
But products are only one part of Keller's plan. What really gets him excited—as an engineer and a longtime proponent of Japanese quality management, or kaizen, principles—is improving processes. The lens of continuous improvement informs Keller's attitude toward regulation, too. Like most business owners, Keller is no fan of what he considers excessive or punitive regulation. But he is willing to collaborate with regulators. He began working with Michigan OSHA consultants in the early 2000s; in 2010, Cascade attained "star" status, in recognition of three consecutive years with rates of significant safety incidents below the industry average.
Instead of viewing regulations like those mandated by OSHA as a nuisance (NAM and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for years fought against implementation of the original OSHA legislation and continue to lobby against efforts to expand the legislation), Keller came to see them as a blueprint for improvement. He also argues that fixing tomorrow's problem today is not just a way of fending off inspectors and avoiding pesky fines but a practical strategy for putting Cascade ahead of the curve. Which is exactly where Keller wanted to be with sustainability.
Keller started thinking about becoming a B Corporation in mid-2010. The organization seemed like a perfect fit. Its goal is highly ambitious: to create an economic sector composed of triple-bottom-line businesses—that is, companies explicitly committed not just to earning financial returns but to creating social and environmental value. "The interesting thing about sustainability is the interaction of the three points," Keller says. "So many people in industry just think about green and stop there." Getting the external stamp of approval was, for Keller, a way of encouraging others to consider the standard, with the long-term goal of developing a sustainable-business cluster that would help drive the West Michigan economy.
Kenyatta Brame, Cascade's chief administrative officer, oversaw the certification process, with help from managers across the company's operations. Cascade has spent years focusing on employees, the community, and sustainability, so making the grade was largely a matter of documenting existing practices. And having gone through ISO and LEED certifications, Cascade had a lot of the needed proof available.
But more important, the process of completing the comprehensive B Corporation survey helped Brame's team identify opportunities for improvement. The certification process also brought the company's supply chain into sharper focus. "One thing Cascade is very good at is looking at ourselves; this survey made us want to look at the people we work with as well," says Brame. Although Cascade was able to document its successes in workplace diversity, local charity, and community service, the company did not have verification that its suppliers were making similar efforts. "In many cases, we're the first company they're dealing with that's talking about a triple bottom line," Brame says.
There's no doubt in Keller's mind that the future can't run on oil—and that, he says, presents opportunities for Cascade. In 2007, the company created a renewable-energy business unit, which makes a small wind turbine for residential use and distributes and installs solar panels. "You don't even need to believe in climate change and carbon and all that stuff," says Keller, who supports a mandatory 10- to 15-year phaseout of fossil-fuel imports. "If we change our fuel systems, we'll decrease our imports, which will help our economy and create a new area for manufacturing. That kind of policy would be tremendous."
