In
the scene from the 1960s movie by the same name, “The
Graduate” is given some business advice: “Think
plastics.”
Peggy Joanne Maier
Today, Peggy Joanne Maier, a director of the
Presbyterian Lay Committee, does indeed “think plastics”
– but not in the same sense as the film’s sound
bite.
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.