June 2024 - Executive Director's Update

I hope this finds you all well as summer quickly gets into full swing. Hopefully this means you’ll be able to find some quality and quantity downtime with family and friends before Labor Day arrives, schools are back in class, and the cadence of industry conferences and meetings picks up again. 

It’s been a whirlwind three months for all of us, with state and federal legislative and regulatory activity continuing at a nearly unprecedented pace and bringing some firsts for us. This includes AMERIPEN testifying at a U.S. Senate hearing on extended producer responsibility and publicly supporting extended producer responsibility legislation that was ultimately signed into law as Minnesota became the fifth state to do so. Together, we continue to lead public policy engagement, thoughtful science-based research, and stakeholder engagement for the entire U.S. packaging industry.  

Speaking of leadership, our April Board of Directors elections saw Scott Byrne with Sonoco reelected to the Board for his third term, and Emily Williams with TC Transcontinental elected to the Board for her first term. Thanks to both, to Jordan Fengel with Tetra Pak as he cycles off the Board, and to all our Directors and Executive Committee for their commitment to help lead AMERIPEN forward. Learn more here.  

Demonstrating strong support for our continued growth, we have already added 16 new members in 2024! This includes American Coatings Association, Anchor Packaging, Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), Chick-fil-A, Contract Packaging Association, Del Monte Foods, Energizer Holdings, Ingevity, IPL Global, Minerals Technologies Inc., PakTech, PMMI, The Toy Association, TOPPAN USA, WK Kellogg, and World Centric. It's another great growth year for AMERIPEN, and we are thrilled that all these great organizations have joined us. 

Our growth and focus would not be possible without your membership and support. With your continued participation, we can provide key decision-makers with the best available information and policy guidance and enable more opportunities for you to engage with colleagues across the packaging value chain. The entire AMERIPEN team is grateful for the opportunity to work with such engaged and intelligent members, and we appreciate the product and packaging expertise you bring to us, as well as your ongoing commitment to and support of AMERIPEN. 

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me anytime to talk about how we can benefit you, your company, and the entire packaging industry value chain. My door is always open.  

Dan Felton 
Executive Director 
AMERIPEN