Bay Cities History

Bay Cities was established in July of 1956 located in Los Angeles by Mr. Bill Hanan, CEO and Founder. Bill began selling in the box business in 1946 for Wilson Paper Company. He later moved to National Container that later became Nekoosa Packaging as a commissioned representative.

While associated with National Container, Bill became aware that many of his customers wanted more from a corrugated company than just brown boxes. They wanted supplementary packaging. After a brief period of time, during which he tried representing various folding cartons and specialty packaging items, he sensed there was a lack of coordination in providing these different packaging components. In order to satisfy that need, he formed Bay Cities Container Corporation.

During this time, Bill was still affiliated with National Container which had limited its mix to large quantities. To provide the smaller quantities, it was necessary to buy from various sheet plants. Bill’s customers wanted mill quality and the various sheet plants did not produce mill quality. It was for this reason that a manufacturing plant, Arrow Container & Packaging Corporation was formed in 1967, a subsidiary of Bay Cities.

The company moved to Pico Rivera, the present production plant in late 1973. The building was constructed in two phases of two 50,000 square feet increments. In 1986, Bay Cities established ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) through which the employees own stock in the company. At this time, Arrow Container & Packaging Corp. was merged into Bay Cities.

As the company grew the California economy became very anti business and many industries moved out in groves. In the early 90s the company refocused its efforts towards high end graphics. Bay Cities began to focus on four color flexo graphic printing processes and created one of the foremost graphic and structural Design Departments on the west coast. Coupled with the state of the art plant and supported client service the company became an advertising agency with the support of manufacturing housed under one roof. In a continuing effort to meet client’s requirements, Bay Cities has continually upgraded its manufacturing equipment, using the most current state-of-the-art computer technology for the box business.

Bill retired 1999 then launching his dream of an employee owned company. In 2000 the shares of the company we purchased entirely by the ESOP as well as the 100 thousand square feet of plant and offices. The company has been focused on point of purchase displays, retail packaging and industrial packaging for the last few years,

In 2005 Bay Cities has begun its move into a 90,000 square foot facility next to the plant. This new building will house the general offices, state if the art warehousing and a modern packout and fulfillment department to compliment its product and service offerings. The company has been active setting up operations around the country and in China to better serve it’s ever demanding Clients. Bay Cities is now a recognized national and global corporation.