Futamura USA kicked off a three-day 10th-anniversary celebration Thursday evening at its building in Topeka with a full-on carnival, opening a party that will run through Saturday evening. The packaging manufacturer is marking a decade in the Capital City with a public celebration at 6000 SW 2nd St.
The company said the event is meant to show appreciation for a community that has allowed it to build something special in Shawnee County. For Futamura, the milestone is more than a birthday party. It is a marker of how far the plant has come since its early days in Kansas.
Mike Basore said the company’s first priority was far more basic than a 10th-anniversary bash. “Our goal was just to keep the plant open,” he said. What followed, he said, was growth the company did not expect when it arrived.
“Then it went to starting lines that we had never ran and now we’re looking at bringing new products to Kansas that will bring even more jobs here in the future,” Basore said.
That arc helps explain why the celebration matters now. Futamura USA is not just looking back on 10 years in Shawnee County; it is signaling that the next phase may be bigger than the last. The company has continued to expand what it makes in Kansas, and its leaders are now talking about additional products that could deepen its local footprint.
The party continues over the next two days at the company building, where the carnival atmosphere will give way to more celebration before a fireworks show Saturday evening closes out the event. For a manufacturer that says it has built something special in Shawnee County, the timing is fitting: a public thank-you now, with the next chapter already in view.
