submitted photosuzy hecht remer is president of midwest box co.midwest box co. is oldfashioned in a lot of ways, said president suzy hecht remer.the clevelandbased packaging manufacturer shuts down between christmas and new year&39s, and the company doesn&39t rely on email. in fact, it doesn&39t even use voicemail. if the company is closed, customers can call an answering service that immediately reaches out to hecht remer. the company instead stresses the human component of the business, hecht remer said, both in how it interacts with customers and with each other.&ldquowe&39ve turned into one big family,&rdquo she said. &ldquoblood doesn&39t have anything to do with it. we just take care of each other.&rdquohecht remer and her sister, laurel hecht, officially took over the business in 2010 when her father, marvin hecht, died. in 2012, hecht remer&39s sister went back to her artwork and hecht remer, who had been working at the company with increasing responsibility since the late 1990s, became the sole owner of the business.the company has been in cleveland for 50 years, and many of the 26 employees have been with the company for a decade or more. the fact that people want to stay says something positive about the company, hecht remer said, and the wealth of information the employees bring is invaluable.&ldquoi always think the success of a company is its employees,&rdquo hecht remer said.vice president of sales and marketing paul rotman, who has been with the company since 1977, said pricing is important in the packaging market, but service is more so. it&39s what differentiates the company, he said, especially since it doesn&39t have a proprietary product to sell. when customers call, they need their issues resolved quickly.and the lack of reliance on voicemails and emails goes back to that principle. rotman said he thinks it&39s easier to trust something someone actually tells you, rather than reading it in an email.&ldquothe easier we make their lives and their jobs, the easier our jobs are,&rdquo rotman said.those types of personal relationships in the time of the internet are unique, said john pusateri, quality manager for cleveland steel specialty co. in bedford heights, and it&39s &ldquocomforting&rdquo to him as a customer.pusateri said he&39s been working with midwest box for about 10 years. the company is big on ontime delivery and has a good understanding of the customer&39s needs. at cleveland steel specialty, the company makes everything from atms to products for the food industry. the company needs customized boxes, which midwest box has been able to design.&ldquoit&39s been a good ride ever since,&rdquo pusateri said.beyond the boxeshecht remer carries that approach into her other role as landlord of walford industrial park. hecht remer said her philosophy is that as long as it&39s legal and the tenants pay on time, she&39s a handsoff landlord to the approximately 27 tenants. the spaces are inexpensive, but it&39s up to the tenants to bring it up to code.the property was on the auction block in 2002 when hecht remer&39s father bought it and promptly handed it over to her. over time, the walford avenue property has &ldquoblossomed&rdquo into a varied industrial and commercial complex, hecht remer said.the complex not only is home to midwest box, but to several other enterprises, including indoor mountain bike park ray&39s mtb and buckeye brewing. there are some mechanics and other manufacturers that also call the complex home, and some truck drivers use the space to park their vehicles while visiting family. the complex has about 600,000 rentable square feet, hecht remer said, of which about 80 is occupied.when hecht bought the complex, midwest box occupied about 100,000 to 120,000 square feet, rotman said. now, it takes up about 200,000 square feet and can continue to expand. the company&39s multinational customers often want to see the warehousing space, which is an integral part of the business, he said.and the company has been investing in new equipment, like a baler for scrap and a marquipward united twocolor flexo printer slotter. midwest box hired two new employees to run the marquipward united machine, which rotman said is faster and more automated than the existing machinery.while hecht remer doesn&39t like to give out statistics, she did say business has improved greatly in recent years. she thinks manufacturing in cleveland and northeast ohio has been bouncing back and, as those companies grow, midwest box grows along with them.&ldquoand we&39re busy,&rdquo hecht remer said. &ldquoand we&39re busier every year.&rdquo 
