Packaging Solutions changes name, announces new hires

05 May 2011

Packaging Solutions Holdings Inc. has named several key executives, released the location of its new plant in Wisconsin and unveiled its new corporate name, Prolamina.

The moves were announced in a May 5 news release from the Lake Forest, Ill-based company, which was formed in 2010 by packaging industry veteran Harold Bevis and private equity firm Wellspring Capital Management LLC of New York.

Packaging Solutions Holdings in August acquired Jen-Coat Inc. of Westfield, Mass., and on March 1 bought Excel Pac of Montreal. In October the company said it planned to open a third plant in the Midwest.

The renamed Prolamina’s newest facility will be located in a former Kimberly-Clark diaper plant in Neenah, Wis., with production to begin in August 2011.

Prolamina will spend $25 million on the site. According to Prolamina’s release, the plant will serve as a critical redundant production location for Prolamina’s Montreal and Westfield, Mass., locations.

Packaging markets served will be tobacco, cheese, pouch materials, pet food, medical, produce and snack foods.

“The new plant … offers lower operating costs, improved response times and lower freight costs to customers. Importantly, it will serve as production and location redundancy for customers to increase certainty of supply for our customers,” Bevis said in the release.

Prolamina also has added a slew of seasoned packaging veterans to its leadership team.

Mark Butler will lead the specialty lamination sales efforts in the dairy market. He joins Prolamina from Printpack LLC, and he also worked at Reynolds Flexible Packaging, American Plastics Co. and Curwood Bemis Packaging.
Brian Gooding will be sales manager for specialty lamination in the Canadian market for food and medical packaging. Gooding has worked at ExxonMobil, Technical Packaging Management and Pliant Corp.
Scott Little will lead specialty lamination sales efforts in lid stock, healthcare and medical packaging markets. He worked most recently at Nordenia International, and also at Oracle Packaging (RJR Packaging) and American Packaging Corp.
Chad Perre will be in charge of Prolamina’s product development activities. He joins Prolamina from Schreiber Foods Inc. Perre has also worked at Alcan Packaging as a product development manager and research engineer, and holds multiple patents in packaging.
Scott Fleming will lead Prolamina’s operations team in Neenah as vice president of operations. He is a professional engineer and certified Six Sigma specialist, who previously was director of manufacturing at Exopack/Alcan and led SJFleming Engineering.
Hesam Tabatabaei will head Prolamina’s R&D efforts. Tabatabaei was formerly a chemical engineering post-doctoral fellow at the University of Montreal Polytechnique’s department of chemical engineering and worked with the Industrial Material Institute of the Canadian National Research Council. Tabatabaei has been awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal of Canada for technical achievements.
Bevis is the company’s chairman and CEO