Chuck McClure loves what he does

“Family comes first,” said Chuck McClure. “We don’t want our people at work worrying about a situation at home. We’ll figure out how to support them at work, when they need to be at home.” The 70 employees who work for Chuck know the company will have their back when family must be their priority. And that’s the culture Chuck has helped to instill at Atlantis Industries in Georgetown.

Growing up in rural Texas, Chuck grew up with the same aspirations that most of his classmates had – graduate high school, get a job, get married and raise a family. His first job was at a plastic injection molding plant in Lubbock, Texas. He worked there until he was in his 20s, when the idea of owning his own company started to seem very attractive. He and a partner started their own satellite dish company and were doing well. But then the technology changed to digital, which neither he nor his partner had anticipated, and it wasn’t long before they were out of business.

Chuck was recruited to go back to the injection molding company where the company had adopted the concept of lean manufacturing, and Chuck was named the lean manager. It was a role that would truly change his business life. Through the implementation of process improvements, Chuck utilized lean technology to save the company $4 million in operating costs. The leaders in the company were so impressed with what Chuck had accomplished, they offered him a general manager position in Connecticut, and one year later, he became the division manager, overseeing six plants. But then 2009 came along and the economy tanked. 

Chuck had found a job with a medical extrusion company when the owners of Atlantis Industries offered him the operations manager role in 2015. The company moved from Milton to Georgetown in 2019, and earlier this year, Chuck was promoted to president.

After Chuck became general manager in 2018, he decided to reshape the brand of the company. Chuck believed the major focus of the business should be directed toward the customer, but more specifically how to add value for the customer. For example, if a customer brings work to Atlantis Industries and they don’t have the capability of doing it, Chuck’s response isn’t to just decline the business. “We’ll help them find another company to do the work for them. We know that customer will have more work to do down the road, and we’d rather have them think of us as a strategic partner instead of simply a vendor.” 

While customers are important to Atlantis Industries, employees are too. Another aspect of the culture Chuck has worked on is striving to have each employee work as autonomously as possible. Chuck doesn’t like micromanaging people and works with his leadership team to help support and facilitate all the work teams. He believes that self-driven people will not only do a better job, but they will also feel more of a sense of ownership in the business, because their decisions and actions are encouraged and supported by leadership. And along with the support Chuck and his team provide to the people who do the work, Chuck also believes it’s important for leadership to not only be very visible on the floor but also to know enough about someone’s job that they can speak with credibility when working with people to make improvements. 

As an injection molding business, Atlantis Industries produces hundreds of different products, including parts that go on cooling towers for commercial industrial businesses; pharmaceutical packaging; products for the military such as missile components, land-mine housings, and firearm components; holsters for the consumer market; and plastic components for automotive companies like Mercedes-Benz, Dodge and Jeep.

As for the future, Chuck hopes to see the company double in size over the next five years, producing more and varied products, and providing more jobs for the community. In addition to employing more people, Chuck also wants people to know that the jobs at Atlantis Industries pay very well and are some of the higher-paying jobs in the community. This is especially important in an area like ours, where housing costs are high, and employee compensation doesn’t always make it easy for people to live near their job. Additionally, Chuck expects the company to be employing more than 100 people in the near future, 

Chuck’s greatest accomplishment has been his ability to eventually become a part-owner in Atlantis Industries. It’s not something Chuck ever thought about or could even imagine growing up in the panhandle of Texas. Living in our area has not only made that possible, but also enables Chuck to get up and look forward to every day with great anticipation. As Chuck said, “I love what I do.”