Interview with Larry N. Montague, President and CEO of TAPPI at SuperCorrExpo 2024.
We’re very happy to have our Ukrainian friends here. It’s been a fantastic event. We have over 4,000 people here, over 300 exhibit booths, and everybody is very happy to be here.
They’re learning about new innovations. Everybody’s got something new out there, and a lot of people ask me about the North American part of what’s going on in the corrugated business. I’ll tell you what, it’s really booming.
We’re seeing a lot of acquisitions between other countries and the US right now, and I feel like that’s going to be stronger for both countries because you learn from each other. No one country knows it all, and so we’re proud to have the benefit of representing some other countries as well.
TAPPI has members in 65 countries, and we’ve been around for 110 years next year, in 2025.
We started in 1915. That’s how I got the job; I started in the industry with the Timber and Wood Products group of Boise Cascade up in International Falls, Minnesota, the coldest place in the United States, I might add. I’m from Memphis, Tennessee, and you can maybe hear the southern accent.
I started with them in timber and wood products, then moved over to their corrugated division and went on from there with some other companies, kept moving up the ranks, and eventually moved to Republic Gypsum Republic Paperboard Company.
They had recycled fiber paperboard mills, and we ended up acquiring some corrugated plants as well as a recycled fibers division, which I was also over. Then one day, I got a call from a retained recruiter about this position at TAPPI, and I told him I wasn’t interested. I was happy in the corporate office in New Jersey of a company and told him I’d try to find somebody.
This went on for six months, and I didn’t really want to move. I wanted to stay where I was. I was happy, but they said they’d fallen on some tough times and were really trying to bring it back.
Again, I said, I’m not the guy. But this went on for a long time. Finally, I told them I’d accept the job, and then I had to tell my other company, which they weren’t real happy about it, but they were happy that I’d reached the point of being the President and CEO.
I was just fascinated but very humble. The first thing I started to do was go out and meet our members all over the place. We have members, like I said, in 65 countries. It wasn’t easy. We have sister associations in Canada, South Korea, Brazil, and China, including TAPPI China.
We are involved in pulp and paper as well as nanocellulose nanotechnologies. A lot of people around this place collaborate, adhering to antitrust laws. That’s very important to us to do business with other people. That’s a strong part of TAPPI. We get people on our volunteer committees and our board of directors, which are also volunteers.
You get a lot out of it for yourself and for the company you work for because you gain recognition for doing good for the industry. We set the standards for the whole world in anything related to pulp and paper or corrugated boxes. We collaborate to ensure we’re doing the right things, and it’s just been a joy.
Of course, the USA is the motherland of corrugated board. Everybody is watching you.
True, the country is the motherland. There are people from all over the world here today. I don’t have the exact breakdown with me, but we have over 4,000 people and 300 exhibitors from all over, running equipment and machines. You may have heard some of it as you walked the floor.
Original and Beautiful Stands at SuperCorrExpo2024″
It’s very exciting, and I love the industry and can’t say enough good things about it. It’s one of the greenest industries there is.
Every box we make can be recycled up to ten times. A lot of people are using 100% recycled board, and some of the new mills being built now, like Graphic Packaging International’s in Texas, are using all recycled paper. It’s great what we’re doing to be more reliable and recyclable, helping to clean up the world. I’ve been with TAPPI for 18 years, and I see something different everywhere I go.
One of the greatest things I saw this week is the game board you guys brought here. It’s fantastic, kind of like a Monopoly board, but with corrugated companies and all kinds of questions to ask.
It’s great. It’s absolutely fantastic. I said that to you when I first saw it the other day. The big thing is it’s driving young people to our industry at a very young age. Some of us are getting a little older, so we’re trying to bring more kids in at a young age, get them to focus on math and science, and then get them into universities. We have scholarships for people looking to enter the paper industry.
We’ve done that for a long time through our foundation. We also have a Student Summit every Martin Luther King holiday weekend, around January 18th to 21st. We bring schools together for an engineering competition, giving them a box of materials to build something specific. It’s a blast. These kids are incredibly smart, and they often get scholarship offers from us. The schools train them, and they leave the Student Summit with an internship or a co-op if they’re still in school, or a full-time opportunity if they’re graduating.
We have student chapters throughout the United States and one in France. We have students from all over the world coming to these universities.
That’s how hungry we are in the United States for this industry and what we’re trying to do for it. That’s the TAPPI difference. We have student chapters throughout the United States and one in France. We have students from all over the world coming to these universities. They innovate, and you saw a lot of this on the show floor. Everyone’s coming up with different ideas, and they have a place to share under the TAPPI umbrella.
We help them get their ideas going. We have over 6,000 members worldwide who collaborate on specialty projects and technologies. We’re talking a lot about AI right now. We’re always trying to find better ways to do things. Collaboration throughout the world is key because no one country has all the ideas. When you put them all together, you get a good product and innovation.
Tell me about your family. Where are you from?
I’m from Memphis, Tennessee. Born and raised there, but I’ve moved all over the country: Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington State, Texas, all over the place in the industry. What’s cool about our industry in the United States is you can go anywhere and do the same type of work if you like it.
We look out for families and try to accommodate moves to places where you may have family. We can’t do it all the time, but we try. I went to university in Memphis and then to graduate school at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas.
It’s been a godsend to work in this industry. I always enjoyed the woods, hunting with my dad growing up. To be able to go out in the forest lands or timberlands of the companies and still see it is amazing. TAPPI had a committee back in 1973 that asked how we could get pine trees to grow faster and quicker.
They wanted a tree that sheds its own limbs, prunes itself, and reseeds itself. I moved near Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Potlatch had 9,000 acres of land. Now, I’m living there, and these loblolly pines are all over. They grow straight, shed limbs, and reseed themselves. It’s the perfect tree for the pulp and paper industry.
I apologize for getting all fired up. I have a wife, Suzanne, whom I met in junior high school in Memphis, Tennessee. We have four children, two boys and two girls, and two granddaughters, aged five and two. My high school sweetheart and I have been together for a long time.
Were your parents close to the industry?
They weren’t. They have all passed now. My son has been in the industry, working in shipping and loading, dealing with dunnage. So he gets it a lot. Dynasty? Dynasty.
I’m trying, I’m trying. We’ll see. It takes time to figure out if it’s a dynasty or not. But I’ve enjoyed working for TAPPI.
Yeah, I see you make everyone excited.
It’s a wonderful place. The kicker is, everybody wants to help everybody else. The young guys are listening to the older people now and vice versa. We’re learning things from the students just out of university. It’s a great industry.
We meet with the students, show them our game, and they get excited. They want to play.
I think you’ve got a winner there. We’re going to try to help you publicize that and get it out there.
Thank you, sir, for your time. Thank you and have a great show. I appreciate it.
Reporting from Orlando by Igor Tkalenko – corruga.expert