Family, friends and great customers credited with Celebration Ice expansion

When Mark Seibert started Celebration Ice, he figured he would just have a single ice maker and storage unit; enough to build a little business to keep himself busy and make a living.

Back then, the Indiana State graduate needed a job after caring for his ailing father, Mike Seibert, for several years, but facing the downturn in the economy in 2008 and a work history gap, Mark’s options were limited. Looking at his experience in the ice business, he decided to fill in the gap left by the exiting ice company.

A business plan led to some money through Dubois Strong’s Entrepreneur Loan Fund and with the help of a former manager of the old ice plant, he purchased a 1950s era behemoth ice maker and set up his factory next to the Dubois County Museum.

Originally Mark’s business was just supposed to support him, but his attitude and customer service expanded his client list forcing him to add staff to cover the seven counties he was delivering to.

By the time Dubois Strong named Mark an entrepreneur of the year in 2012, he had expanded to three ice makers — all creating ice with the signature hole favored by whiskey drinkers — and doubled his storage capacity in the 4,500 square foot area leased from the museum.

The business continued to grow and in 2013, a lifelong friend, Justin Gramelspacher, who had been working on an as-needed basis, came on full-time. Justin’s background and mechanical aptitude filled in gaps in Mark’s skills. While Mark put his marketing degree to use to bring in new clients, Justin, a U.S. Army veteran, kept the company’s equipment running. In the heat of summer, the two both ran deliveries and continued to expand the Celebration Ice territory.

Both Jasper grads, the two attended Indiana State together. Eventually, the two friends decided a partnership was in order, and Justin agreed to use his GI Bill to add to his mechanical skills for working on the ice factory equipment.

Both Jasper grads, the two attended Indiana State together.

“We’ve been childhood friends,” Mark explained about the partnership. “We grew up together, and I couldn’t have done all of this by myself.”

With the continued growth of the business and the recent acquisition of some major contracts including the 25 Chuckle’s convenience stores, they began supplying this week, Mark and Justin are building a new production line in a new location.

The pair worked with Ken and Paul Sternberg to move to 31 South Clay Street. The former Jasper Countertop location across the street from the Patoka River provides about 6,000 square feet to hold the company’s existing equipment as well as room to add a new bagging line and some automated machinery.

“We are horribly inefficient in our other building,” Mark said. “We kept slowly adding on, and there is no flow in our production over there.”

Although he credits the museum with being great to work with as he built Celebration Ice, several factors limited the continued growth including the inability to upgrade the facility without any hope of owning the building. With its poor insulation, single loading dock and the limited access that became even more restricted with the addition of Ruler Foods, Mark and Justin had to move to a better spot.

The building is being renovated now to take delivery of a new 30-ton storage unit. The road access and multiple loading docks will be a big help for the five delivery trucks running Celebration Ice around southern Indiana and Kentucky.

The location on Clay offers multiple loading docks and room to custom-build the ice factory. The interior is a long open building broken up by a single non-load-bearing wall. Mark and Justin plan on taking the wall down and adding a new and efficient production line leading to a large automated storage bin. An office area that already exists on the northeastern end of the building will finally allow some separation between administrative tasks and production.

The new ice makers and storage unit are big additions for the growing company. “It’s state of the art and brand new. It will really help our production with some of its features,” Mark explained.

While the ice makers can be set to run automatically during the company’s heaviest demands, in the past problems would arise with the old storage units and how ice was dumped in overnight. Too much production and the bins would overrun or jam up with ice due to how it collected in the bin.

“It kept me up at night,” Mark said.

With the new unit, a laser measures the height of the pile as the ice is emptied into the bin and when it hits a certain level, an arm sweeps the ice level to allow it to pile up more evenly. The bin is used more efficiently, and Mark and Justin sleep better at night knowing they won’t come into a disaster first thing in the morning.

“Between the three freezers, the new 30-ton bin and our trucks, we will be able to hold up to 100 tons (of ice) in storage,” Mark said.

All that storage is needed for the company that now delivers ice to 17 counties in southern Indiana and four counties in Kentucky.

What’s the secret to the growth?

“We don’t have customers, we have friends,” Mark explained.

Justin agreed. “You aren’t getting a salesman, you are getting a delivery guy that you can call anytime for your needs,” he explained “It’s the one on one.”

Along with the relationships with their customers, the two have relied greatly on the support of friends and family in times when the demand for their ice has outpaced the amount of work they could accomplish on their own.

“My dad has come in when we needed help, Mark’s brother, nephew and our buddies have all helped,” Justin said. “Even my wife (Andrea – formerly Hedinger) has come in to help deliver ice.”

“We wouldn’t have got here without our friends, our family and our customers,” Mark said.

The new facility should be up and running in January, and an open house is planned in the spring. Not bad for a guy who started out just wanting to make enough ice with his 50s era ice-maker to cover his bills.

“I never dreamed it would get this big,” Mark said. “Man, we are in Kentucky. Wow.”