 Lay Committee director: CEO of family business is Christ By John H. Adams The Layman Volume 34, Number 6 Posted October 5, 2001 In the scene from the 1960s movie by the same name, “The Graduate” is given some business advice: “Think plastics.”
She is the vice president of Omni Plastics, Inc., in Erie, Pa., a successful family-owned business, in which her husband Willi, and their son, Mark, are also principals. And, she adds, a CEO – Jesus Christ. Indeed, there is more to business than the injection-molded products Omni produces for electrical and medical purposes. There also is the Maier Family Foundation – a benevolence that supports Christian ministries. Peggy Maier is chairman of the foundation. And she does much more than write checks. Besides working at the Omni plant, she rolls up her sleeves for a multitude of tasks at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Erie and for numerous community agencies. She was the first woman to serve as president of Erie’s City Rescue Mission/New Life Center. She currently serves on the boards of the Gertrude Barber Center, St. Paul’s Neighborhood Free Clinic, and the D’Angela School of the Performing Arts. She is a past board member of the House of Healing, Erie Day School and the Boy Scouts of America. “To whom much is given, much is required,” she explains, citing Scripture. Raised in a Christian family in New Castle, Pa., Maier is a Presbyterian elder, a former trustee and a Stephen minister with an appreciation of Reformed theology. She describes her own faith in Jesus Christ – sparked at age 14 at a Presbyterian camp – as confirmation of the baptismal vows her parents made at her birth. In spite of a busy schedule that includes administrative work at the plant, caring for her parents and her husband’s mother, Maier accepted an invitation in 1999 to become one of the directors of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. She says she was reluctant because of all her other responsibilities, but that Robert L. Howard, chairman of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, was convincing in outlining the purpose of the national organization. “I think the Lay Committee is pursuing the Church of Jesus Christ through the denomination.” Maier was born and raised in New Castle. She learned much about faith and coping while she was young. When she was 8, a truck struck her brother, William Robinson, now a sales representative for 3M. He was comatose for days and the family did not know whether he would survive. Not long after that, both her parents were simultaneously hospitalized. “We had to have a lot of faith,” she said. “I knew of no other walk than faith to turn to. I learned that the Christian life is the way of life.” After high school, Maier enrolled in Youngstown State University – but her college education was abbreviated by a need to work. For 2 1/2 years, she worked for the chief engineer of a plastics company in West Pittsburgh. The engineer, Wilhelm “Willi” Maier, an immigrant from Austria, had been a tool and die maker before he earned an engineering degree in the United States. His work and academic skills placed him on the cutting edge of injection-molded plastic products. Maier had an obvious interest in her. But Peggy Maier, nee Robinson, recalls that she was dating someone else, and, true to her nature, she didn’t believe in changing loyalties. Willi Maier decided to take a job working for a company in California and invited her to go to the West Coast to work as well. She declined but, a couple of months after he left she wrote him a letter. “I used to save stamps from the mail for his father. So I wrote Willi under the pretense of 1) should I still collect stamps and 2) I had broken up my relationship” with her former suitor. Soon, Willi Maier flew back East, there was a quick round of introductions to families and he gave her a diamond ring on Christmas Eve 1965 after they had attended a service at a Presbyterian Church and midnight mass at a Catholic Church. They were married in March 1966. It was a Catholic-Presbyterian union at the outset – but later entirely Presbyterian. The couple first lived in California, but returned to the East Coast. Maier worked in engineering and management for a number of companies. In 1978, with two other investors, the Maiers decided to begin Omni Plastics. Production began in 1979, and, today, it is fully owned by the Maiers. Son Mark, 31, joined the management team after receiving an engineering degree from Penn State University and a master’s degree in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. and Mrs. Maier are members of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Erie, a growing congregation that is part of the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA). They both are elders. |
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