Company: About
Coastal Container

Headquartered in West Michigan, Coastal Container is a family-owned, full-service packaging company supplying businesses with on-time delivery, durable, cost-effective packaging products and innovative services.

With decades of product, process, and service experience, our customers know us for doing things the right way.

What It Means to Be
Locally Owned

Since our founding, we’ve drawn our culture from the rich values you can find deeply rooted in West Michigan business: relationship-based service, honesty and respect.

As a family-owned business, we understand the importance of people—our customers, employees, suppliers and the West Michigan community where we operate are all essential connections to the Coastal Container ecosystem. By acting in service in of all of our stakeholders, we assure that each will be invested in the relationships that drive our company to success.

Leadership Team

Brent Patterson

CEO

Brent Patterson has owned his own company for nearly 40 years and is a third-generation packaging industry veteran. His family has been in the corrugated business for over 60 years. Brent founded Five Star Sheets, a raw material supplier located in New Carlisle, Indiana, in 1996, serving as chairman of the board. He also founded FS (Five Star) Transportation. After selling both of those companies in 2006, he started Coastal Container in 2007.

Brent is joined at Coastal by his two sons, Tyler–packaging product line manager, and Spencer–account manager.

Mark McConnell

CFO

Mark served as Coastal Automotive’s VP of Finance and has also worked in various capacities, previously serving in other finance roles within Coastal Group over the years. Coastal Group’s operating companies include both Coastal Automotive and Coastal Container.

Nathan Hoekstra

General Manager – Coastal Container

Nate is Coastal’s former director of sales and has worked for Coastal Container for the past 13 years. He holds a Certificate of Executive Management from Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame, and membership in Leaderwork leadership since 2016. 

Continuing his passion for teaching and coaching, Hoekstra loves spending his free time as a basketball coach, both formally and informally, for  his 15, 13 and 11 year old children.

Scott Larsen

General Manager – Coastal Sheets

Scott serves as general manager of the Coastal Sheets business unit. Larsen, a Michigan State School of Packaging graduate, brings over 30 years of experience in the corrugated industry to the position. Prior to joining the Coastal team, Larsen spent seven years at Union Camp/International Paper before moving to Akers Packaging in Illinois, working in Sales, Sales Management and General Management.

When Larsen isn’t working, he enjoys attending concerts and music festivals with his wife and best friend, Kelli, as well as spending time in the outdoors with his two sons.

Troy Howard

Plant Manager

Troy has joined the team as a plant manager in its container and honeycomb divisions. He brings over 37 years of corrugated packaging experience, including working as the operations manager at Hood Container Corporation and as plant superintendent and process improvement champion at Timbar Packaging & Display. 

In his free time, Troy and his wife are avid hikers and bikers and love spending as much time outdoors as possible.

Thomas Staal

Director of Management Systems

Thomas brings over 33 years experience in supervisory and quality systems roles. He has also served on several Technical Association for Pulp and Paper Industries (TAPPI) boards and committees, making contributions to performance, safety and communication throughout our industry.

Thomas is married with two adult sons and enjoys geocaching and going to wineries with his wife.

Supporting
Our Community

We’re honored to be an integral part of this community. In addition to creating hundreds of jobs and helping local businesses safely move their goods, we look for opportunities to support our community and see its organizations grow.

Those opportunities include donating boxes for Community Action House and Holland Rescue Mission’s fall food drives as well as partnering with D.A. Blodgett St. John’s to support our community’s next generation.

Certifications & Accreditations

Awards

Steelcase Premier Supplier Award

2022

Haworth Supplier of the Year

2009

Haworth Supplier Excellence & Innovation Award

2014

Biggest Loser 2017 & 2018

For Carbon Footprint Reduction

Trade Affiliations

Coastal Container is proud to partner with trade associations including: