MPH Co finds permanent home on State Street

The MPH Company building at 1150 State St. in Fostoria is the kind that looks small on the outside and unending on the inside. The plant is filled with a consistent humming noise, even in the office space. The staff had earplugs on hand. MPH Co. — or Material Processing and Handling company — employs 25 people now, and it's looking for more. Its president, Jim Kenyon, previously owned OK Industries, another Fostoria-based plastic processing company. "I've lived here most of my life," Kenyon said. He'd worked for Roppe for 14 years, learning about managing a plant and a business, as well as the recycling industry in general. He created MPH and moved into the State Street building in 2018. MPH recycles industrial plastic, as well as some post-consumer plastics. They bring in material, often from the automotive industry, grind it up, wash it and send it back to clients to be reused. The building used to house InterMetro, an equipment manufacturer, and subsequently a few smaller businesses that never lasted long. "The building sat empty for a while," Kenyon said. "When we first came in here, people kept relating us to a business that had left. They thought we were the same company." After InterMetro left, the State Street property was purchased by a group in Cleveland. Those owners leased the building to several smaller companies before offering it to MPH, who now owns the building. According to Jeremy Vance, MPH's general manager and a Norwalk native, they've invested close to $2 million in the business so far. The construction going on around the building has mostly been repairs, and some equipment has been moved in. Kenyon said sitting empty for so long was difficult on the building — they had to dig up and replace pipes for the sprinkler system and fix several structural issues. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down business a lot, especially since MPH was created less than 2 years prior. "When COVID hit at the beginning of last year, it kind of slowed us down," Kenyon said. "We wanted to have this all remodeled by now, and the rest of the cleanup done and all that, but the virus slowed everything down." Now, in the wake of the pandemic, the business is moving closer to the ever-elusive concept of "normal," even getting ready to take on more staff. "We're just supporting the community the best we can," Kenyon said.