SquarePac CEO Walter Griggs brings Customized Solutions to $1 Billion Stadium
SquarePac LTD Engineer Custom Solutions for Professional Sports Teams
By Asha Morton
Marketing Specialist, Georgia MBDA Centers
ATLANTA — Walter Griggs, CEO and founder of SquarePac LTD, his wife, CFO Jeanille Griggs and their team made it to the big leagues last year, securing their niche in the sports world by engineering custom material handling solutions for a new, state-of-the-art stadium in downtown Atlanta. SquarePac pitched a winning idea which included cost-saving custom designs that optimize space and ensure efficiency.
According to Walter Griggs, this is a home run towards meeting one of the company’s goals of evolving and expanding into work with multiple professional sports stadiums. A long-time lover of sports, Walter has always dreamed of working on the field, and with this new initiative, he and his team at SquarePac have accomplished just that.
Griggs is confident his custom commercial solutions set the standard for efficiency and take space optimization and material handling for sports teams and large arenas to the next level. Griggs, who is Six Sigma Black Belt Certified, and his team of material handling experts worked alongside architects and builders to study their process while executing SquarePac’s plans for the $1.6 billion stadium project.
The 71,000-seat stadium was designed to accommodate games for the Falcons, Atlanta United, plus choice events like the Super Bowl, but architects had to overcome a few obstacles. The stadium required a plan that allowed a safe and secure transition between games without interrupting the fan involvement.
“Our storage is geared towards fan experience (goals, flags, drink rails, etc.) which occupies several thousand square feet, the ability to switch between games swiftly and transport items securely was our main objective, explained Michael Lindsey, Director of Warehouse Operations. SquarePac engineered custom designs that allowed movement and flexibility [to occur], improving goal transportation and rail storage while cutting manpower and time in half.”
SquarePac assisted in the design of the warehouse layout for the stadium and installed a variety of pallet racking and industrial shelving options. Their engineering experts designed and built custom transport racking solutions that hold fan support rails, floor coverings, stencils and goal posts for the National Football League and for Major League Soccer.
“SquarePac designed solutions based on our challenges, as a result, they maximized the warehouse space, provided equipment transportation and increased event conversion capabilities, mentioned Michael Moore, Manager of Engineering Services, recognizing the SquarePac team as innovators, flexible and partners.”
These racking solutions gave the operators the ability to safely double and even triple-stack items during storage. This type of ingenuity and technology was a necessity in this space-challenged environment. Their aim was to guarantee the stadium was as efficient, user- friendly, and safe as possible. SquarePac delivered results that maximized storage space and expanded protection for products. They also created custom material handling carts to provide mobility for goal posts and other items that were previously carried by hand.
SquarePac’s custom material handling carts provided a safer, more effective option for transporting materials both on and off the field. As Griggs and the team would say, “Remember SquarePac when other packaging fails.”
A client of the Georgia MBDA Advanced Manufacturing Center (AMC), SquarePac gained great exposure within the manufacturing community after receiving the 2015 Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council’s Supplier of The Year award, 2016 National Minority Supplier Development Council’s Regional Supplier of the Year” award, 2016 Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) Who Rock award from Minority Business Entrepreneur Magazine, 2017 Who’s Who in Black Atlanta and the National MBE Manufacturers Summit 2016 Poster Walk Competition Award for Sustainability. The company continues to grow through utilizing the vast network of opportunities, expertise, and resources provided by the AMC and others.
“SquarePac is one of the most engaged Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) firms in the [Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council] family, said Stacey Key, CEO, and President of the GMSDC. Walter and his team have dedicated themselves to their craft, and have seen tremendous growth as a result of their aggressive approach to building and expanding their products and services.”
Key describes the packaging expert team as community leaders, innovators, reliable and resourceful. “[SquarePac] is never afraid of a challenge, primarily because they will figure out how to do what others could not,” Key added.
Based in Atlanta, GA, SquarePac has assisted companies since 2013 in shortening their supply chain and helping them save money in their logistics process. They have the skill to study a warehouse and provide space-efficient racking solutions and the capability to create reusable package protection and manufacture the technology required to execute the tasks. These packaging experts offer returnable plastic containers, reusable plastic pallets, collapsible bulk boxes, stackable hand-held totes, trackable metal shipping racks, custom material handling carts and pallet racking systems that are ergonomically engineered and designed for continual use.
Walter Griggs created SquarePac LTD. as a direct response to resolve the challenges packaging engineers and local manufacturing plants experience daily. According to Griggs, 9 out of 10 companies that manufacture, ship or store any type of product deal with lack of space or internal damage. As a result, SquarePac assists companies to go vertical, which optimizes space and protects products during transport. Their designs are reusable and reduce the cost associated with expendable packaging, improving sustainability and virtually eliminating waste.
SquarePac will partner with various professional sports team stadiums and arenas to assist in mastering challenges they may have. The company also supplies Cox Communications, Georgia Power, Macy’s, Comcast, Georgia World Congress Center, Magna, Cummins, Georgia Transmission, Grady Hospital, Siemens and Ingersoll Rand. Their goal is to be the one-stop-shop custom Commercial packaging and pallet racking specialist for professional sports arenas, large distribution centers and manufacturing facilities worldwide.