Wagner Packaging Celebrates 100 Years In Business, Honoring The Legacy Of I.J. "Izzi" Wagner

SALT LAKE CITY, June 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- When Harry and Rose Wagner started running their business and raising their family in a modest adobe home in Salt Lake City, they never imagined how time and technology would transform everything about their business, or that it would still be here a century later. 

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120612/LA21684)

Harry and Rose's son, Salt Lake City's legendary I.J. "Izzi" Wagner, and his mother, brother and sister managed to keep the business going, even after Harry's early death, through the Great Depression and World War II, growing Wagner Bag into a business that thrives today - Wagner Packaging Solutions.

On its 100th anniversary, Wagner still serves more than two thousand companies throughout Utah with unmatched service and outstanding packaging solutions.  To celebrate, Wagner Packaging Solutions is throwing an old-fashioned carnival party on Saturday, June 9, 2012 for employees and customers at the company's facility at 2850A South 900 West in Salt Lake City.

"Wagner has been a provider to L-3 Communications for more than 35 years," said Donnie Fredrickson, Manager, Logistics at L-3, a leader in communications systems for intelligence collection, imagery processing and satellite communications.  "Our product may be shipped anywhere in the world, and the packaging material must stand up to the most rigorous handling it will come across. Wagner furnishes that."

"We are bringing new products to the market all the time, and product packaging is key," said Bruce Brierley, CEO of Maxtec Inc., a Salt Lake City-based company that is a leading supplier of oxygen analysis and delivery products shipped around the world.  "No one has the same bandwidth that Wagner has to meet our constantly changing needs."

While the story of Wagner Packaging Solutions began with the Wagner family, it has been continued by the sons of another immigrant family born and raised in an adobe house just a few blocks away from the Wagner home in old Salt Lake City.   

Like Izzi, Ernest and Charles Wilson's father died young, leaving the boys and their mother to struggle through the Great Depression.  Eventually, the family moved to Los Angeles to make a fresh start.  Just as Izzi had, Ernest and Charles served their country during World War II with honor. After the war, the Wilson brothers went into the paper business in Los Angeles.

Today, that company is Ernest Packaging Solutions, headed by CEO Charles Wilson and his son, Tim Wilson, who is the company's president.  The Wilsons acquired Wagner Bag in 1993 and retained the Wagner name in honor of their friend Izzi. Ernest Packaging Solutions has acquired eight more divisions in the western U.S. since that time.

"Today Ernest Packaging Solutions is moving packaging forward. We are building on our shared histories of innovation and responsive customer service," said Charles Wilson, CEO and Chairman.  "We continue our strong tradition of providing customers the best solutions for their packaging challenges."

SOURCE Wagner Packaging Solutions