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Think globally, act locally MOTAG South, Atlanta
The Spring session of MOTAG South, Feb. 26-27, Renaissance Concourse Hotel (Atlanta 404- 09-9999) will focus on three tenets for successful business development. Grow the top line through product technology; Understand the need to be cost competitive; and, Invest not only in machines, bricks and mortar, but also in people.

The two days of sessions will be opened by welcoming addresses by Jess Fasold, North Carolina Chip Co., Wilson, NC, and Randy Stevenson, Chairman FRMSC, chip quality manager, Georgia Pacific East.

Other sessions will include: • Woodyard profile – a new chipping line at Weyerhaeuser New Bern, NC • The role of scanners in woodyard optimization • Destoner for removing rocks in the bark finish • Truck dumpers • Rail dumpers, stacker, reclaimer inspections: Why they are important • What's new in rotary debarking and, • What it takes to be a leader. PI

Kimberly-Clark makes changes
Following the Global Business Plan it announced last July, Dallas-based Kimberly-Clark has taken steps to strengthen its market position.

The North American and European Personal Care groups will be combined under a single North Atlantic management team, as will the North American and European Consumer Tissue businesses.

To help growth in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the company has formed a Developing and Emerging Markets business unit.

The company will maintain its three global business segments – Personal Care, Consumer Tissue and Business-to-Business-for financial reporting purposes. However, responsibility for
baby wipes will be moved from Consumer Tissue to Personal Care.

Heading the units will be: Steve Kalmanson, North Atlantic Personal Care; Rob van der Merwe, North Atlantic Consumer Tissue; Robert Abernathy, Developing and Emerging Markets business; Dudley Lehman, the Business- to-Business Group.

Executive vice-president Kathi Seifert and Asia/Pacific Group president Paul Geisler will retire, as they had planned.
www.kimberly-clark.com. PI

SCA seeks secondary fiber suppliers
SCA Tissue’s Barton, AL, facility is looking for regional partnerships to supply waste paper. The new manager of fiber procurement for the company’s Southern Region, David Bricker, says that municipalities that collect paper in the area bounded by Memphis and Nashville, TN, and Birmingham, AL, region are of interest to supply OCC, residential mixed paper, sorted office and coated book stock.

Barton, slated to start this March will make 100% recycled-content paper towel, tissue and napkin products. At full capacity, the mill will consume over 140,000 tons/year of waste paper. www.sca.com.

• Elsewhere, a report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, says the council will make recycling mandatory in 2005. In 2006, homeowners who don’t sort their trash won’t have it picked up at all. Businesses will be fined up to $50 per collection if they don’t sort cardboard, paper, cans and bottles from the regular trash. Reporter Kathy Mulady said the city plans to spend about $748,000 on education programs and service improvements. PI

Five new TAPPI directors
TAPPI members have elected five individuals to the Board of Directors for the 2004-2006
term: Roger H. Brear, Domtar Industries Inc.; Gene Canavan, retired; Sally Love, Paragon
Worldwide; Hans Muller, Voith Paper Holding GmbH; Jeffrey J. Siegel, Mica Corporation.

They begin their terms of office following the TAPPI Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony, May 4, 2004 in Atlanta, GA in conjunction with TAPPI Paper Summit. Each year five new directors are elected to serve three-year terms on the 15-member Board of Directors.

President Kathleen M. Bennett, Georgia-Pacific Corp. and vice-president Willis J. Potts, Jr., Inland Paperboard and Packaging, Inc. continue their terms in 2004.

The continuing directors are: Charles F. Bogatie, Smur-fit-Stone Container Corp.; G. Ronald Brown, MeadWestvaco Corp.; Richard J. Croker, Geor-gia- Pacific Corp.; Celso E.B. Foelkel, ABTCP; Michael E. Haas, Longview Fibre Compa-ny; John E. Hanby, Washing-ton Pulp and Paper Foundation; Jonathan C. Kerr, Andritz Inc.; Peter F. Lee, AgriGenesis Biosciences Ltd.;
Lewis D. Shackford, GL&V Pulp Group Inc.; Ronald A. Yeske, NCASI.

www.tappi.org. PI

Gaspesia mill work stopped
The rebuild of a mill in the Gaspé region of Quebec has been stopped because Papiers Gaspésia, the owner, has asked for court protection from its creditors following the collapse of an agreement amongst its three shareholders on a $C200-million refinancing package.

The protection, under the Corporate Credi-tors Arrangements Act, is similar to that afforded by Chapter 11 protection in the US.

The shareholders, Tembec (25%), the Quebec government’s investment arm called SGF
(25%) and the Quebec Federation of Labor’s Solidarity Fund (50%) are seeking to convert the former newsprint mill to produce coated papers.

Metso Paper Inc. is supplying the major part of the equipment and recently signed a five-year maintenance contract with the firm. Chandler, the town in which the mill is situated, is in a region of high unemployment. The mill’s restart would offer a renewal of the area’s fortunes. PI

Awards for industry people
Dr. Arthur Ragauskas, professor, IPST at Georgia Institute of Technology was elected a Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science. AWS promotes the collaborative devlopment of wood sci-ence internationally. It recognizes meritorious wood scientists with their election as Fellows.

The 2003 J.A. Van den Akker Prize for Paper Physics went to Drs. Dionissios T. Hristopulos and Tetsu Uesaka. The international panel of judges deemed their paper A Model of Machine-Direction Tension Variations in Paper Webs with Runnability Applications as the greatest contribution to the field of paper physics in 2003.

Hristopulos is an associate professor in the department of mineral resources engineering at the Technical University of Crete. Uesaka is a program manager in the product performance program at Paprican. The J.A. Van den Akker Prize is awarded annually by the TAPPI paper physics committee. The paper appeared in the December 2002 issue of the Journal of Pulp and Paper Science.
www.tappi.org. PI

PAPTAC’s EXFOR wins accolade
Last November, PAPTAC’s EXFOR® was voted one of Tradeshow Week’s fastest growing shows. TSW Fastest 50 honors the most impressive tradeshows in the US and Canada over the past three years.

EXFOR is managed by Montreal-based Active Expo Inc. www.paptac.ca. PI

AF&PA board elects 2004 officers
At their meeting in Washington February 5, the board of directors of the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) elected its officers for 2004.

Chairman of the board: George J. Harad, chairman and CEO, Boise Cascade Corporation, Boise, ID.

First vice-chairman: Mark A. Suwyn, chair-man and CEO, Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, Portland, OR.

Second vice-chairman: Aubra H. Anthony, Jr., president and CEO, Anthony Forest Products  Company, El Dorado, AR.

Immediate past chairman: Arnold M. Nemirow, chairman, president and CEO, Bowater Corporation, Greenville, SC.

AF&PA — the national trade association of the US forest, paper and wood products industry — represents more than 200 companies and related associations that engage in or represent the manufacture of pulp, paper, paperboard and wood products. The forest products industry accounts for about 7% of total US manufacturing output, employs 1.5 million people and ranks among the top 10 manufacturing employers in 42 states. www.afandpa.org. PI

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