RPA Presents Educational Session on Fundamentals of Reusable Packaging at PACK EXPO

Arling­ton, VA, Sep­tem­ber 9, 2010 – The Reusable Pack­ag­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (RPA) is host­ing a work­shop at PACK EXPO that will give atten­dees a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the fun­da­men­tals of devel­op­ing an effec­tive reusable pack­ag­ing strat­egy for their com­pa­nies’ sup­ply chains.

The edu­ca­tional ses­sion, “RPA’s Fun­da­men­tals of Reusable Pack­ag­ing Work­shop”, will be held Tues­day, Nov. 2, from 2 to 5 p.m. in McCormick Place South Build­ing, Level 5, Meet­ing Room S-505b. The work­shop pre­sen­ters, com­prised of RPA mem­bers, have first­hand expe­ri­ence with devel­op­ing reusable pack­ag­ing solu­tions for all types of busi­nesses and mar­kets. The work­shop is tar­geted to seri­ous pack­ag­ing pro­fes­sion­als and to per­sons charged with inves­ti­gat­ing cost-effective sup­ply chain alter­na­tives that can deliver bot­tom line results and pro­vide sus­tain­able busi­ness solutions.

“Expe­ri­enced indus­try experts are pre­sent­ing this work­shop to help show atten­dees learn more about the value of switch­ing to reusable solu­tions in their sup­ply chain oper­a­tions,” said Jon Kalin, RPA Chair­man of the Board, and Sales and Mar­ket­ing Man­ager for Rehrig Pacific. “The work­shop will pro­vide an in-depth look at the fun­da­men­tals of assess­ing whether reusable pack­ag­ing is the right fit for a company’s finan­cial, social and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­ity efforts. This is the crit­i­cal first step for build­ing a case for the use of reusables.”

In addi­tion to assess­ment, the work­shop will cover the ini­tial phase of imple­ment­ing a reusable pack­ag­ing strat­egy. This phase is referred to as “Con­cept Under­stand­ing” and includes basic def­i­n­i­tions, reusable sup­ply chain mod­el­ing, financ­ing alter­na­tives and asset management.

“Any­one who is seri­ous about inves­ti­gat­ing cost-effective sup­ply chain alter­na­tives will ben­e­fit from the knowl­edge and prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence that will be shared at this work­shop,” said Jerry Wel­come, Pres­i­dent, RPA.

The work­shop is com­pli­men­tary; how­ever atten­dees must reg­is­ter in order to attend. More infor­ma­tion about reg­is­tra­tion will be announced shortly. Also, par­tic­i­pants can add their names to the reg­is­tra­tion list by send­ing an e-mail to info@reusables.org. Please include name, com­pany, title and e-mail address so that RPA can con­firm reg­is­tra­tion. Reg­is­tered work­shop atten­dees also will be invited to a spe­cial net­work­ing recep­tion fol­low­ing the work­shop. Reg­is­tered guests will receive a spe­cial invi­ta­tion by e-mail with the reg­is­tra­tion confirmation.

About the Presenters

Jon Kalin, RPA Chair­man of the Board; Sales and Mar­ket­ing Man­ager for Rehrig Pacific — Work­shop Moderator

Mr. Kalin began his career at Rehrig Pacific Com­pany as a Plant Engi­neer in Los Ange­les in 1988. His exten­sive career includes Plant Man­ager for Rehrig’s Ray­mond, New Hamp­shire facil­ity, fol­lowed by a posi­tion as Design Engi­neer, and Design Engi­neer­ing Man­ager in Rehrig’s Los Ange­les, CA oper­a­tion. In 1995, Mr. Kalin joined the sales force first as the Food and Bev­er­age rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Los Ange­les and then as Euro­pean Sales Man­ager, liv­ing in Brus­sels, Bel­gium. In 1998, he became the first Divi­sion Man­ager at Rehrig’s newly opened Tracy, CA facil­ity where his respon­si­bil­i­ties included open­ing the plant and hir­ing the staff. As a result of the tremen­dous growth in the Return­able Plas­tic Carte (RPC) busi­ness, Mr. Kalin over­saw a 50,000-sq. ft. expan­sion of the Tracy facil­ity. Mr. Kalin became the busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ager for Rehrig Pacific’s Agri­cul­ture busi­ness group and now runs the Agri­cul­ture group. He holds a B.S. degree in Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley.

Bob Klimko, RPA Imme­di­ate Past Chair­man of the Board, Direc­tor of Gen­eral Indus­trial Mar­ket­ing, ORBIS Corporation

From 1989 to 2001, Mr. Klimko worked at ORBIS Cor­po­ra­tion in var­i­ous roles includ­ing Direc­tor of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, Menasha Ser­vices, Direc­tor of Mar­ket­ing, Direc­tor of Cor­po­rate Strat­egy and Prod­uct Man­ager. These roles pro­vided Mr. Klimko with tremen­dous expo­sure to mul­ti­ple indus­tries in the reusable pack­ag­ing mar­ket in both the industrial/assembly man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries as well as the per­ish­able foods busi­ness (meat, poul­try, pro­duce, flo­ral). He then joined Norse­man Plas­tics, a provider of reusable pack­ag­ing for mul­ti­ple indus­tries includ­ing bev­er­age, bak­ery, food per­ish­ables, food, dry goods and oth­ers. In 2008, ORBIS acquired Norse­man Plas­tics and Mr. Klimko once again joined forces with ORBIS.
Prior to work­ing at Norse­man, Mr. Klimko was the Direc­tor of Mar­ket­ing & New Busi­ness Devel­op­ment for Wilbert Plas­tics, the world’s largest heavy gauge ther­mo­former and provider of cus­tom plas­tic solu­tions. Mr. Klimko’s for­mer asso­ci­a­tion lead­er­ship roles include Vice Chair of the Mate­r­ial Han­dling Indus­try of America’s Reusable Plas­tic Con­tainer & Pal­let Asso­ci­a­tion, and co-chair of the Coun­cil of Logis­tics Man­age­ment Reverse Logis­tics Com­mit­tee. Mr. Klimko has an under­grad­u­ate degree from the Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and an MBA in mar­ket­ing and per­son­nel man­age­ment from the Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lyle Schmitt, RPA Mem­ber­ship End-User Com­mit­tee; Man­ager, World­wide Logis­tics Qual­ity, John Deere & Company

Mr. Schmitt has been with John Deere for 35 years. Dur­ing his tenure at John Deere, he has served in var­i­ous capac­i­ties – as a mechan­i­cal engi­neer; a con­struc­tion engi­neer; and as an envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer. He has also played a sig­nif­i­cant role in energy man­age­ment and strate­gic plan­ning. Dur­ing the last eight years, his career has focused on Logis­tics, Qual­ity & Pack­ag­ing. Mr. Schmitt is respon­si­ble for spec­i­fy­ing return­able pack­ag­ing for raw mate­r­ial pur­chased by John Deere fac­to­ries and for ensur­ing that fin­ished prod­ucts are not dam­aged dur­ing tran­sit. He has a degree in Agri­cul­tural Engi­neer­ing from Iowa State University.

Drew Mer­rill, RPA Vice Chair­man; Vice Pres­i­dent of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment & Strate­gic Plan­ning, CAPS

Mr. Mer­rill is respon­si­ble for all of CAPS’ sales and mar­ket­ing activ­i­ties and has been an offi­cer of the com­pany since 2004. Since join­ing the com­pany in 2003, Mr. Merrill’s solutions-based and client-centric approach has increased CAPS’ rev­enue by 73% while main­tain­ing a 96% cus­tomer reten­tion rate. Con­tainer and Pool­ing Solu­tions, Inc. (CAPS) is one of North America’s pre­mier choices for rent­ing and pool­ing liq­uid and dry con­tain­ers for auto­mo­tive, food, bev­er­age, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, cos­metic, chem­i­cal and other indus­trial appli­ca­tions. CAPS has spent the past 12 years sup­port­ing some of the biggest and most pro­gres­sive com­pa­nies in their quest to ‘green’ their sup­ply chains while reduc­ing their over­all pack­ag­ing costs.

Prior to join­ing CAPS, Mr. Mer­rill suc­cess­fully man­aged sales teams for ser­vices and high-technology com­pa­nies includ­ing Pro­duc­tiv­ity Point Inter­na­tional and Synap­sis Solu­tions. In addi­tion, he was co-founder and CEO of a high-tech e-Learning ser­vices firm that grew to $4M in three years. Mr. Mer­rill has a B.A. from North­west­ern Uni­ver­sity.

Keith Schall – Direc­tor of Busi­ness Sys­tems and Tech­nol­ogy, CAPS

Mr. Schall is an expert in finance, tech­nol­ogy and human resource man­age­ment with more than 10 years of expe­ri­ence. Pre­vi­ously, he was a con­troller and a net­work admin­is­tra­tor, where he was respon­si­ble for finance, tech­nol­ogy, and was the head of ERP imple­men­ta­tion. He was brought on to the CAPS team in 2005. Since then his con­tri­bu­tions have included the imple­men­ta­tion of the recently enhanced CAPS-TRACTM and CAP­Scan web based track­ing solu­tions, increas­ing account­abil­ity and effi­ciency. Mr. Schall is cur­rently in the Asso­ci­a­tion for Cor­po­rate Growth, holds a B.A. Account­ing degree from Alma Col­lege, and received his M.B.A. from the Uni­ver­sity of Detroit Mercy.

Lane Pence, RPA Board of Direc­tors; Direc­tor, Growth Strat­egy, CHEP Americas

Mr. Pence joined CHEP in 1998 and has held roles in oper­a­tions, global sourc­ing, sales, con­sult­ing and strat­egy. He leads a team that has exe­cuted platform-based sup­ply chain con­sult­ing engage­ments around the world, with expe­ri­ence in new coun­try entry, new prod­uct appli­ca­tions, new cus­tomer devel­op­ment and new chan­nel entry. Mr. Pence was involved in pio­neer­ing RFID devel­op­ment, includ­ing the first suc­cess­ful test of RFID tags in pal­lets in 2002. He has worked with many reusable assets; includ­ing pal­lets, con­tain­ers, reusable plas­tic con­tain­ers, inter­me­di­ate bulk con­tain­ers and dis­play ready plat­forms with small gro­cery man­u­fac­tur­ers to some of the world’s largest man­u­fac­tur­ers, dis­trib­u­tors and retail­ers. Mr. Pence has held pre­vi­ous roles in mar­ket­ing, busi­ness devel­op­ment and asset dis­po­si­tion with Enter­prise Leas­ing. He is a Six Sigma green­belt and holds a B.S. in Busi­ness from Miami University.

In addi­tion to the work­shop, the RPA is host­ing its Reusable Pack­ag­ing Pavil­ion at PACK EXPO. Reusable pack­ag­ing ser­vice and pack­ag­ing sup­pli­ers are exhibit­ing together within the RPA Reusable Pack­ag­ing Pavil­ion to edu­cate atten­dees about the eco­nomic and envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits of inte­grat­ing reusable pack­ag­ing into their business-to-business sup­ply chains. Together, the com­pa­nies offer a wide range of ser­vices includ­ing asset man­age­ment, track­ing, clean­ing, repair and oth­ers for han­dling and trans­port­ing com­mer­cial prod­ucts, man­u­fac­tured goods, pro­duce, food and bev­er­age prod­ucts safely and economically.

The Pavil­ion will be located in rows 5000, 5100 and 5200 on the main level of Lake­side East Hall in Chicago’s McCormick Place. For more infor­ma­tion about the Pavil­ion, exhibit­ing com­pa­nies, or gen­eral infor­ma­tion about the reusable pack­ag­ing indus­try, visit the RPA web­site www.reusables.org.

Learn more the PACK EXPO trade shows at www.packexpo.com.

About the RPA

The Reusable Pack­ag­ing Asso­ci­a­tion is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort between man­u­fac­tur­ers, pool­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, retail­ers and edu­ca­tors to pro­mote the envi­ron­men­tal, safety, and eco­nomic ben­e­fits of reusable pack­ag­ing. The RPA serves as the col­lec­tive voice of the indus­try and uses its knowl­edge of the mem­bers’ prod­ucts and ser­vices to advance the adop­tion of reusable pack­ag­ing and sys­tems through­out the sup­ply chain. The RPA is focused on pro­mot­ing the expan­sion of reusables as the pre­ferred pack­ag­ing solu­tion across sup­ply chains in all indus­tries. For more infor­ma­tion, visit http://www.reusables.org or call (703) 224‑8284.

About PMMI

PMMI is a trade asso­ci­a­tion of 560-plus mem­ber com­pa­nies that man­u­fac­ture pack­ag­ing, pro­cess­ing and related con­vert­ing machin­ery in the United States or Canada; machin­ery com­po­nents and pack­ag­ing con­tain­ers and mate­ri­als. PMMI’s vision is to be the lead­ing global resource for pack­ag­ing, and its mis­sion is to improve and pro­mote mem­bers’ abil­i­ties to meet the needs of their cus­tomers.

PMMI orga­nizes the PACK EXPO trade shows: PACK EXPO Inter­na­tional, PACK EXPO Las Vegas and EXPO PACK Méx­ico, con­nect­ing par­tic­i­pants in the pack­ag­ing and pro­cess­ing sup­ply chain with their cus­tomers around the world. Com­ing Up: PACK EXPO Inter­na­tional, Oct. 31–Nov. 3, 2010, at Chicago’s McCormick Place; EXPO PACK Méx­ico at Mex­ico City’s Cen­tro Banamex, June 21–24, 2011, and PACK EXPO Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Con­ven­tion Cen­ter Sept. 26–28, 2011.

Media con­tact: Jerry Wel­come
1100 N. Glebe Rd, Suite 1010
Arling­ton, VA 22201
Phone: 703−224−8284 Fax: 703−243−5612
Email: info@reusables.org
Web Site: www.reusables.org