Poised for bright future, yarn producer marks 75th year
Posted December 23, 2014
By Devin Steele (DSteele@eTextileCommunications.com)
McADENVILLE, N.C. – Pharr Yarns, a privately held sales yarn manufacturer, recently observed its 75th year in business with a spectacular, family-oriented celebration here.
Its diamond anniversary, however, may not have been possible had company leaders not had the foresight to figure out new ways of meeting customer needs in the fast-changing, competitive textile environment of the last two decades. Its survival and evolution into a world-class player, however, did not entail figuring out new ways of doing business, mind you. Pharr Yarns, say company officials, has always conducted its business affairs with integrity, honesty and humility – qualities instilled in the company by the family that owns the firm, the Carstarphens. And operating in such a distinguished manner likely figured prominently into the company’s ability to push through challenges and maintain and expand its customer base.
Those attributes, those in the know say, emanated from Joseph Martin “Bip” Carstarphen III, the longtime CEO of Pharr Yarns who lost his battle with cancer in May. A company press release issued at the time of his passing read, “Mr. Carstarphen served his company and its people with great distinction for more than 58 years. He demonstrated to all that a successful business can be conducted in a manner in which integrity and honesty is foremost, people are valued, faith in God is expressed, charity is encouraged and leadership with humility is second nature.”
Integrity, honesty, humility – those traits all ring true for Mike Strader, Pharr’s New Business Innovation manager, High Performance Yarn Division.
“From my perspective, there is a management style here unlike anywhere I've ever worked,” he said. “Bip taught us to lead with humility. And that humility doesn't mean you can't be hard-nosed or driven or highly motivated or that you can’t be pushed beyond your capabilities. It just means that when you're conducting business, there is a certain humility. And the first thing we sell is integrity. I believe that every day, every moment, every breath Bip took, he and his family have believed that – to sell integrity with humility.”
And Carstarphen’s son, Bill, now the company’s president & CEO, maintains that honorable legacy, Strader added. “Bill is the same – very humble,” he said. “He has all the same wonderful characteristics as his father.”
For years, Rich Pattinson was well aware of the family and company’s reputation. Which made his decision to accept an offer from the company nearly five years ago easy, he said.
“First and foremost, the integrity of the family attracted me here,” said Pattinson, director of Sales and Marketing, Carpet Yarn Division, who was recently named to succeed retiring 43-year employee Woody Gosney as president of the division this coming March. “There is no finer family than the Carstarphens to work with. They’re top notch. That's really what tipped the scales for me. The family and the culture were a huge appeal. I've dealt with hundreds of companies over the years and you would be hard pressed to find another like this.”
Christmastown USA, made possible by Pharr Yarns.
Christmastown USA, made possible by Pharr Yarns.
Christmastown USA, made possible by Pharr Yarns.
The benevolence of Pharr Yarns and the Carstarphen family also manifests itself in the community. Their philanthropic efforts are countless, underscored by the nationally renowned annual Christmas lights displayed through the mill village in this quaint Gaston County town. Since 1956, the company has supported and financed the holiday tradition in McAdenville, dubbed “Christmastown USA,” where several hundred thousand people drive or walk through this time of year.
As testament to the company and family, it is blessed with many longtime employees – including about 100 with at least 25 years of service, according to Christy Gliddon, director of Human Resources. “Such dedication is unheard of today,” she said.
Beyond these deep-seated superlatives, Pharr Yarns’ efforts to develop new and advanced products also played a major role in its ability to differentiate itself, company leaders say. The company highlights this aspect in its tagline: A Tradition of Innovation. Spurred by investment, innovation has shaped its past and will continue to guide it toward improving its business and its customers’ business, they say. But more on that later.
The company, Strader added, also encourages entrepreneurship. “We are given clear resources in an organization where there are not a lot of layers, so on any given day we are business managers with a strong sense of entrepreneurship to develop new relationships, new products and ultimately make profit.”
With manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and South Carolina, Pharr Yarns operates two units, the Carpet Division and the High Performance Division.
Carpet Division
Pharr has provided spun carpet yarns for decades, dating back the 1950s with the advent of synthetic fibers. The company seized upon the opportunity to fill demand for these new yarns, creating one of the largest and most progressive textile firms in the postwar era.
The company added space dye capabilities in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the company counted as many as 300 customers in the carpet sector, but massive consolidation occurred in the 1980s and 1990s as large companies began to buy out smaller players. Today, in North America, roughly two dozen mid to large operations are in existence, Pattinson said.
In the 1990s and 2000s, not only were carpet manufacturers consolidating all of those tufting, dyeing and finishing operations, but they also started their own extrusion operations, he said. This “backward integration” meant that the independent supplier model would dwindle, he added.
In 2006, Pharr leaders saw the need to invest in its first extrusion equipment, Pattinson said. A couple of years later, the economic collapse occurred, at which time the North American market was consuming about 3 billion pounds of carpet yarn. The demand for less competitive spun carpet yarn precipitously dipped as overall demand for carpet yarn fell to about 2 billion pounds, and more plants began to shut down.
Heat setting
Spinning
Heat setting
Heat setting
“Pharr had the foresight to essentially backward integrate, not just twist, heat set and space dye carpet yarns, but create its own source of yarn,” Pattinson said. “That was a critical move and it was initiated about two years before the economic collapse, an event which ripped a third of industry demand off the table. Fortunately, Pharr already had a plan in motion and was already aligned with companies that needed Pharr’s services.”
The company continued to invest in extrusion, twisting, heat setting and space dyeing equipment and facilities during that period, and continues to spend money in those areas today. In the last eight years, it has invested about $70 million, including more than $20 million in the last two years.
“Our mission is to make differentiated products,” Pattinson said. “That’s our reason for being. I describe us as being geared like a mountain bike. The big guys are geared like road bikes, where they’re suited for flat, long runs. They’re very good at that. Now if you take that road bike and try to ride it up a steep, narrow hill, you’re not going to be able to do it very effectively. We’ve got those extra sprockets, so to speak. For example, with our extrusion, we sub-divided the melt systems and put in that extra ‘mountain bike’ gearing, where we can make those smaller, economic-order quantities of specialized BCF carpet yarns.”
At the same time Pharr was increasing its extrusion capabilities, it was ramping down its spun yarn production. Today, it has nearly 1 million square feet of carpet yarn production under roof, generally running European-made equipment.
“We can extrude a wide range of BCF yarns here,” Pattinson said. “We happen to have centered on polyester because polyester has become huge. And in the residential carpet segment, is probably 40 percent to 45 percent of the North American market now. We also source and process a significant amount of nylon for the market.”
Pharr Yarns has a heritage of managing complexity, he added, dating back to its days of working with 300 or so customers.
“Larger carpet manufacturers tend to come to us for difficult products that do not fit into their production systems,” he said. “Managing complexity is a core competency of Pharr Yarns and we have invested in equipment that’s been geared to produce these products more economically.”
The Carpet Division currently sells to carpet operations in every continent of the world, offering a wide range of BCF yarns, in polyester or nylon 6 or 6,6. These yarns are either white dyeable or solution or space dyed and are offered in a wide range of deniers and dpfs (coarse to very soft). End products using Pharr's yarns include everything from industrial mats to the most elegant designer floor coverings on the market.
High Performance Division
This High Performance (HP) Division produces a much smaller volume than the Carpet Division but its products are higher value. This division spins yarns from fibers that have unique inherent properties such as flame and/or heat resistance, chemical resistance, cut resistance, exceptionally high strength, electro-static dissipation, etc. End uses for HP Yarns may include protective clothing for the military, fire services and industry, industrial work gloves, filtration fabrics, high-temperature straps/harnesses, conveyor belting and sewing thread.
Fibers include but are not limited to: Nomex® and Conex(Meta-Aramid), Kevlar® and Twaron (Para-Aramid), PBI® (Polybenzimidazole), Lenzing Flame Retardant Rayon, P84® (Polyimide), Kermel® (polyamidelimide), Flame Retardant Modacrylic, Torcon, Fortron and Procon® (PolyphenyleneSulfide), Basofil® (Melamine), Dolanit® (Homopolymer Acrylic), Dyneema®(UHMWPE), carbon, Fortafil® OPF and TECGEN® OPF (Oxidized Polyacrylonitrile) and wool (domestic and global).
The company entered this market when it bought the high-performance business of Wiscasset Mills in the early 1990s. The largest part of this unit is personal protective textiles such as uniforms or coveralls.
“That's a growing business for us,” said Strader, who joined the company in 2004. “Our ability centers around being able to look at a particular requirement. There is not one particular fiber or one particular solution for every situation. We have the technical ability to look at what's required and make the product for the application.”
Protective textiles, for instance, offer many of the same properties but are different for military uses vs. firefighter uses, he added.
“You want the firefighter to survive 30 or 45 minutes in temperatures approaching 1500° to 1600° Fahrenheit,” he said. “Whereas you want the soldier, in the case of an IED (improvised explosive device), to survive that five seconds when the threat occurs. So our proficiency is to pare this down and to build textile systems that will protect at these different threat levels.”
Incidentally, during the height of the war in Afghanistan, a Pharr Yarn employee’s daughter wearing textiles made of yarn produced by the company saved her life when she was hit by an IED. (Read story here.)
Military applications also extend into other areas to include protection for tank operators, ordinance operators, fuel handlers, Navy deck hands, airman and many other positions, he added.
Being involved on the High Performance side of the business offers numerous challenges but unique opportunities, Strader said.
“We’re given a chance to do something that protects other people’s lives,” he said. “What could be more exciting in the textile business than this kind of stuff? On a given day, we can be talking about protecting somebody's hands. The next moment, we can be talking about protecting a firefighter to give him a chance to stay longer in a building to save somebody. We can have discussions on how to solve a problem with moving a product through a molten metal application. Or we can be out in Promontory Point, Utah talking to rocket scientist.”
Bright future
With a rich heritage, a family culture and a Tradition of Innovation, Pharr Yarns appears poised for a bright future as it embarks on its next milestone. And the company will be in able hands with the Carstarphen family for years to come. Bill Carstarphen and his wife Carol have three sons, and one, William, has joined the company at the plant level. The other two are in school and may someday join the ranks. Bill’s brother Martin also is with the company on the land development side.
Bip Carstarphen certainly left the company in good stead. His legacy and footprint still echo here, Strader said.
“Bip always used to say, ‘at the end of the day, we have to sell product for more than it costs to make,’ ” he said. “But, above everything else, he said, 'we don’t compromise our values and we don’t neglect our families.' ”
Bip Carstarphen and his wife, Catherine Ann