Longtime Naperville engineering firm closes

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Updated: March 6, 2012 8:18AM

Naperville’s Packer Engineering Inc. has gone out of business, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of its founding.

Two sources who declined to speak on the record confirmed late Friday the company, established in 1962, closed its doors within the past 10 days.

Mail sat uncollected late Friday afternoon in a bin at the company’s deserted headquarters at 1950 N. Washington St. on the city’s far northeast side.

No one answered when telephone calls were placed to two numbers there and at the corporation’s Ann Arbor, Mich., office. Additionally, telephones at a Packer Engineering office in Columbia, Md., have been disconnected.

Chairman Ken Packer, 87, spoke to The Sun recently about the company’s financial troubles.

“We do have cash flow problems and we are addressing those,” Packer said. “There are people who are on ‘temporary termination’ at this time.”

Packer, at the time of the interview, said he was “confident” the financial issues of the company would be addressed.

“Everyone here, including myself, has been impacted,” he said.

Lyle Hoppie, 72, a Michigan-based engineer, has worked as a Packer Engineering subcontractor since 1991. He said the company “has had cash flow problems for some time.”

“I am still owed money from Packer, and I’d like to find out if there is any way to have my accounts settled,” he said.

Hoppie said the company has had an ongoing cash flow problem, but since he had always received payment eventually, he continued to do engineering projects for them.

“The company has always met its financial obligations with me, but things have gotten progressively worse over time,” Hoppie said. “Payments might have been a week to a month late, but now I have payments that are over four months overdue.”

Bill Bird contributed
to this report.