Peter McDermott is a veteran accountant, business manager and industrial-development executive who took over then-struggling Minnesota Diversified Industries (MDI) in 2008. MDI, nearly 50 years old, employs more than 500 people with disabilities and others in contract manufacturing, packaging, recycling and environmental services at plants in Minneapolis and northern Minnesota.
Q: What is your background and how did you become CEO of MDI?
A: I started my career as a CPA in St. Paul and moved to Grand Rapids in 1982 for a position in finance at Blandin Paper Company. Blandin was sold in 1997. In 1999, [when he was CFO] rather than move to the corporate office in Chicago, I took the CFO position at Cirrus Design in Duluth. I left Cirrus in 2002 and started my not-for-profit career with Itasca Economic Development in Grand Rapids. I was president [in 2008]. Itasca Economic Development supported MDI's growth of its Grand Rapids facility. MDI had interim management; I was attracted to the mission.
Q: What is MDI's mission and what have you and your employees accomplished?
A: To serve people with disabilities by offering inclusive employment opportunities and services. Our primary businesses are integrated plastic packaging manufacturing and assembly … with additional business in recycling and environmental services. We are a social enterprise, so MDI operates like a for-profit business, but we are always accountable to our mission.
Q: Please quantify your growth.
A: We've grown from 123 employees in 2009 to 297 and 231 contract employees in August 2016. We've added two new facilities to bring the total to five facilities in the Twin Cities, Grand Rapids, Cohasset and Hibbing areas. Revenue has grown from $11 million in 2009 to $45 million in 2015. Approximately half of our employees are people with disabilities. At MDI, people with and without disabilities work side by side, producing the best possible products for our business-to-business customers.
Q: How you have diversified from your heavy reliance on the U.S. Postal Service?