Avery, Christoffers & Associates.Closed ~2005https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2005/08/27/Final-report-in-on-AVCA-Corp-liquidation/stories/200508270044?abnpageversion=evokeSSOE ACQUIRED AVCA in ~2004/2005It was once among metro Toledo's largest employers and heralded as a homegrown success story. But the last chapter on engineering firm AVCA Corp. was written this month at the Lucas County courthouse when a receiver submitted a final report on the liquidation of the business.Robert Avery, who co-founded the Maumee firm in 1973, was sorry to hear of its demise but wasn't surprised."They were gradually letting key people go," Mr. Avery, now 82, said in a telephone interview yesterday from his home in Sylvania."It was an ignoble end," added Mr. Avery, who retired in 1987 from the firm originally known as Avery, Christoffers & Associates.The firm, which employed 450 as recently as 1999, consistently ranked on lists of the largest employers in metro Toledo. But it all but disappeared a year ago when rival SSOE Inc. of Toledo hired 60 remaining employees from the firm, whose Arrowhead Park offices remain vacant.Its name surfaced publicly this week when local economic development officials, seeking to explain a steep drop in professional jobs in Lucas County between 1998 and 2003, cited the AVCA situation as a contributing factor."Back in 2000, we lost more than $22 million worth of business out of $40 million," said Dean Diver, former chief executive and majority owner. Kellogg Co., Battle Creek, pulled $14 million in business to go to a larger firm; Toledo's Owens Corning, on the verge of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, cut business with the firm to $3 million from $8 million; and Owens-Illinois Inc., Toledo, dropped to $1 million from $5 million.Facing nearly $4 million in debt, Mr. Diver said: "I could not continue AVCA."The company's main creditor, KeyBank NA, filed suit in July, 2004, in Lucas County Common ...