update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information . august 2015 this article needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . july 2014 learn how and when to remove this template message rocktenn industry paper and packaging fate merged with meadwestvaco successor westrock founded 1973 headquarters norcross georgia united states key people steven voorhees ceo revenue 9.895 billion 2014 1 operating income 854.4 million 2014 1 net income 483.8 million 2014 1 number of employees 26 000 website www.rocktenn.com rocktenn was an american paper and packaging manufacturer based in norcross georgia . in 2015 it merged with meadwestvaco to form the westrock company . it was one of north america s leading producers of corrugated and consumer packaging and recycling solutions with annualized net sales of approximately 10 billion . the company employed approximately 26 000 people and operated more than 245 facilities in the united states canada mexico chile argentina and china . contents 1 company history 1.1 formation of rocktenn in 1973 1.2 acquisition fueled growth in the 1980s and 1990s 1.3 increasing focus on packaging and merchandising displays early 2000s 1.4 smurfit stone acquisition 2 restatements 3 see also 4 references 5 external links company history edit rocktenn company was formed in 1973 the product of a merger between tennessee paper mills inc. and rock city packaging inc. its origins date back to 1898 when the rock city box company of nashville tennessee was founded . among its customers in the mid 1940s were a local boot factory a local candy manufacturer a hosiery company and several shirt manufacturers . the owners joe mchenry and a.e. saxon who also operated several other business ventures wanted to sell out and retire . rock city was attractive to arthur newth morris owner of the southern box company not least for its bank account of 60 000 . morris purchased the company in 1944 for 200 000 making a cash down payment of 50 000 . the 25 year old morris had been a printer and part time presbyterian minister when he went to work in 1926 for edwin j. schoettle a philadelphia pennsylvania industrialist who owned a group of box and printing companies that bore his name . for a monthly salary of 350 morris was expected to manage several hundred employees some of them more than twice his age . he also traveled along the eastern seaboard explaining to meat packers his discovery that they could avoid shrinkage of their hot dogs by putting them in schoettle s boxes instead of stringing them up like bananas . by 1935 morris was making a salary on which he could comfortably support his wife and four children but he wanted to go into business for himself . armed with life savings of 5 000 and a 7 500 investment by his boss he moved to baltimore maryland . there he managed the j.e. smith box & printing co. during the day while running the southern box company a company he founded in 1936 at night . using smith s presses die cutters and other box making equipment during the evening morris began servicing two anchor customers who knew him from his philadelphia days . only six months after morris had left philadelphia schoettle came to baltimore to offer him a promotion and a 25 000 salary . when morris refused schoettle offered to sell morris his own majority share of southern box for 25 000 . a bank loan to morris made the deal possible . he moved to new quarters for 200 a month left day to day management to one of his employees and devoted himself to finding new accounts . in its first year the company made a few thousand dollars on sales of 60 000 . by 1942 morris was doing well enough to open a corrugated box plant and to buy another baltimore enterprise the king folding box co. where he installed a corrugated sheet cutter . morris sold corrugated partitions to major glass companies which needed them to separate the bottles and glasses they shipped . the following year the name of his enterprise was changed to newth morris box company . in 1944 another branch was opened in jacksonville florida where the company produced cardboard anti radar devices for world war ii american troops and popcorn boxes for movie theater owners . following morris s purchase of rock city box co. that same year he changed the name of newth morris box co. to rock city box sales company . morris s purchase of rock city box co. put him in contact with one of its suppliers and his future merger partner tennessee paper mills . andrew m. tomlinson and john stagmaier two of tennessee paper s three founders were athens tennessee businessmen who already owned box factories . the company s third founder was a.m. sheperd of vincennes indiana a boxboard manufacturer . tennessee paper mills was incorporated in 1917 with stagmaier as president tomlinson as vice president and sheperd as general manager . with 300 000 raised from stock offerings the three men established a paperboard factory in chattanooga where operation began in july 1918 . by the end of the year the new company had made a net profit of 23 367 on sales of 165 799 . although the founders originally planned to make board from wheat straw they turned instead to wastepaper as the primary raw material ; thus tennessee paper became the first recycled paperboard mill in the south . to reduce its electric bill the company installed its own steam generating plant in 1926 . paperboard production averaged 20 tons a day in the early years reaching an average of 56.77 tons in 1930 the same year that the company produced a record 15 557 tons of product . this figure would not be matched for some time because of the great depression ; production dropped to 11 995 tons in 1934 . the company remained profitable however although only modestly so . as the nation s economy slowly recovered tennessee paper s volume of business increased to meet renewed demand . during 1939 the factory operated at 85 percent capacity compared with the industry average of 71 percent . in 1941 it operated a record 305 days . sales volume exceeded 1.7 million in 1945 . a second papermaking machine doubled the mill s capacity in 1949 . beginning in 1954 however tennessee paper began losing customers to companies manufacturing lower cost folding cartons and corrugated and plastic containers . the trend in the business was toward vertical integration . many paperboard companies acquired or merged with their customers . typically profits were made at the mill level by selling boxes virtually at cost . the effect on boxmakers was so severe that by 1957 tennessee paper was extending credit and loans to its customers in order to keep their accounts . one of these customers was rock city . its consumption of tennessee paper s board grew from about 1 000 tons in 1944 to about 37 000 tons in 1972 when it took 44 percent of tennessee paper s total boxboard production . between 1965 and 1968 tennessee paper bought 29.5 percent of rock city s common stock preparing the way for the eventual merger of the two companies . by then rock city owed tennessee paper more than 4 million in loans . morris s burgeoning industrial empire grew both by acquisitions and by establishing new companies . among the former was the parks box & printing co. located on a leased 11 acre tract in norcross georgia . this land was purchased in 1957 and gradually became the focal point for management of all the morris companies . a new 30 000 square foot warehouse was added to the norcross facility in 1960 . each of the morris companies operated as a separate and virtually autonomous profit center . rock city opened not only small set up and folding carton plants but also facilities in livingston and milan tennessee to meet the packaging needs of shirtmakers . a set up box division was established in 1955 . rock city waste paper co. collected sorted and baled wastepaper for sale to paper mills . other morris companies and plants sprouted throughout the south . sales grew from 8 million in 1959 to 12.9 million in 1967 when all the companies were consolidated into rock city packaging inc. morris became chairman of the board and a son in law worley brown became president . sales volume reached 23 million in 1972 . meanwhile in order to meet the competition tennessee paper began buying customers to assure continued markets for its paperboard products . in 1964 it acquired knoxville paper box co. inc. a manufacturer of folding and set up boxes for about 1 million . in 1969 tennessee paper acquired wastepaper factories in knoxville and atlanta and in 1972 it built another wastepaper plant in chattanooga . formation of rocktenn in 1973 edit the merger of rock city packaging and tennessee paper mills in 1973 gave morris brown and others who held stock in the former companies a controlling interest in the new corporation rocktenn company . most tennessee paper common stockholders received preferred stock in the new company that earned them triple the dividends they had been receiving . some shareholders however opted for cash instead . the president of tennessee paper w. max finley and his immediate family received common stock in the new company . finley was elected chairman of the board and brown became president and chief executive officer . reorganization did nothing to slow down expansion . the crescent box & printing co. of tullahoma tennessee was acquired in 1973 and clevepak corporation s conway arkansas folding carton plant in 1974 . by 1976 the company had 29 divisions . sales in 1974 the first fiscal year after the merger reached 47.7 million . in 1978 bradley currey jr. a veteran officer of the trust company of georgia who had helped effect the merger became president and chief operating officer of rocktenn . brown became chairman of the board while remaining chief executive officer . finley moved to senior chairman of the board . morris remained chairman of the executive committee until his death in january 1985 . currey later became rocktenn s chairman in 1993 and ceo in 1989 as well as its president . acquisition fueled growth in the 1980s and 1990s edit in 1982 rocktenn s sales volume reached 133 million and its production of recycled paperboard peaked at 180 000 tons most of which it used itself in the manufacture of folding cartons and containers and corrugated boxes . its many customers included coca cola dupont and kentucky fried chicken which it serviced from facilities in alabama arkansas georgia maryland massachusetts north carolina ohio tennessee and texas with a workforce of 1 700 people . in a 1983 atlanta constitution interview currey attributed the decade old company s growth to luck chance and circumstance ... but the success of any company depends on its people . he added that the company had gone to great lengths to make sure the workers know that we care a group of senior executives took a month each year to travel to each of the company s facilities in order to talk to employees and present service awards . rocktenn made its biggest acquisition yet in 1983 when it paid 40 million to buy 11 clevepak corporation plants seven of which were making partitions to protect glass and plastic containers . currey said the acquisition would allow rocktenn to capture about one fourth of the partition market raise annual revenue to more than 200 million and increase production of recycled paperboard to 235 000 tons . in