what image comes to mind when you think
about the paper industry dead and dying
a dinosaur may be no longer relevant in
the computer age well I’ve worked in
this industry for over 41 years and the
words that come to my mind are
innovative and sexy our company owns a
paper mill in Westbrook Maine that was
built in 1854 and we still operate a
machine that was built in 1905 that
machine produces rolls of paper that
weigh about a half a ton they’re then
taken to another department where
they’re covered with a special coating
and cured with electron beam technology
then a metal roll makes a decorative
pattern on this paper
our customers take this paper and use it
as a reusable mold they pour vinyl
urethane on it produce a fabric and that
fabric makes handbags sneakers soccer
balls and the dashboards in your car in
fact the Westbrook mill is 40% of the
world’s supply of release paper so that
means a lot of you drove here today in a
car that had a dashboard made on main
paper this is a premium product and what
our customers really care about is how
many reuses they get out of the product
and if you’re in China they might use it
a hundred times so the better we make
our product the less our customers buy
so we need to think of a new model and
we think of ourselves as cellulose
manipulators rather than paper makers
and we’re really good at making textures
and patterns what if instead of making
decorative patterns we made functional
patterns and a couple ideas
working on one is to mimic patterns made
in nature that naturally inhibit
bacterial growth and take that fabric
put it into hospitals and reduce
bacteria without using chemicals what if
we combine texture and chemistry and we
produce surfaces that can harvest water
from the air to make drinking water we
also own a pulp mill in Minnesota and
that pulp mill makes dissolving pulp
many of you in the audience are wearing
clothes made from dissolving pulp your
tag might say tensile Modell or rayon
they’re comfortable they’re breathable
and actually my dress is made from
dissolving pulp dissolving pulp also is
made into bio plastics and it’s even
used in the food you eat as a thickener
to make low fat products like yogurt
taste a little better so you are not
only wearing wood you’re also eating it
this kind of innovation is going on
throughout the paper industry and almost
anything that can be made from petroleum
can be made from wood bio plastics jet
fuel chemicals and the world is very
very interested in replacing petroleum
with a renewable products like wood the
Lego company has said that by 2030 they
will eliminate petroleum-based raw
materials and they will place them with
plant-based raw materials
so think about Maine right now Maine has
an abundant natural resource that’s
renewable and we also have world-class
research and development going on to
innovate products so what can you do if
you’re interested in replacing
petroleum-based products with wood you
can support increase public funding for
research and development to help get
these
products to market sooner you can also
encourage young people to go into the
paper industry these are great jobs we
will be hiring about 10% of our
workforce each year in the coming years
and with a high school diploma you can
make $60,000 a year with great benefits
and this is not your grandfather’s paper
mill I’m sure glad I made the decision
to go into the paper industry 41 years
ago I’d like to update a scene from the
movie the graduate I want to tell you
one word just one word would the future
is in would think about it almost
anything that can be made from petroleum
can be made from wood thank you [Applause]
about the paper industry dead and dying
a dinosaur may be no longer relevant in
the computer age well I’ve worked in
this industry for over 41 years and the
words that come to my mind are
innovative and sexy our company owns a
paper mill in Westbrook Maine that was
built in 1854 and we still operate a
machine that was built in 1905 that
machine produces rolls of paper that
weigh about a half a ton they’re then
taken to another department where
they’re covered with a special coating
and cured with electron beam technology
then a metal roll makes a decorative
pattern on this paper
our customers take this paper and use it
as a reusable mold they pour vinyl
urethane on it produce a fabric and that
fabric makes handbags sneakers soccer
balls and the dashboards in your car in
fact the Westbrook mill is 40% of the
world’s supply of release paper so that
means a lot of you drove here today in a
car that had a dashboard made on main
paper this is a premium product and what
our customers really care about is how
many reuses they get out of the product
and if you’re in China they might use it
a hundred times so the better we make
our product the less our customers buy
so we need to think of a new model and
we think of ourselves as cellulose
manipulators rather than paper makers
and we’re really good at making textures
and patterns what if instead of making
decorative patterns we made functional
patterns and a couple ideas
working on one is to mimic patterns made
in nature that naturally inhibit
bacterial growth and take that fabric
put it into hospitals and reduce
bacteria without using chemicals what if
we combine texture and chemistry and we
produce surfaces that can harvest water
from the air to make drinking water we
also own a pulp mill in Minnesota and
that pulp mill makes dissolving pulp
many of you in the audience are wearing
clothes made from dissolving pulp your
tag might say tensile Modell or rayon
they’re comfortable they’re breathable
and actually my dress is made from
dissolving pulp dissolving pulp also is
made into bio plastics and it’s even
used in the food you eat as a thickener
to make low fat products like yogurt
taste a little better so you are not
only wearing wood you’re also eating it
this kind of innovation is going on
throughout the paper industry and almost
anything that can be made from petroleum
can be made from wood bio plastics jet
fuel chemicals and the world is very
very interested in replacing petroleum
with a renewable products like wood the
Lego company has said that by 2030 they
will eliminate petroleum-based raw
materials and they will place them with
plant-based raw materials
so think about Maine right now Maine has
an abundant natural resource that’s
renewable and we also have world-class
research and development going on to
innovate products so what can you do if
you’re interested in replacing
petroleum-based products with wood you
can support increase public funding for
research and development to help get
these
products to market sooner you can also
encourage young people to go into the
paper industry these are great jobs we
will be hiring about 10% of our
workforce each year in the coming years
and with a high school diploma you can
make $60,000 a year with great benefits
and this is not your grandfather’s paper
mill I’m sure glad I made the decision
to go into the paper industry 41 years
ago I’d like to update a scene from the
movie the graduate I want to tell you
one word just one word would the future
is in would think about it almost
anything that can be made from petroleum
can be made from wood thank you [Applause]
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