Laminations Leadership Transition

Gary Hietpas, Rick Detienne, Chuck Hanson and Gary Weber

Exciting changes help strengthen the Laminations team and prepare for future success

The leadership of Laminations will change hands at the end of 2008 when Rick Detienne retires and Gary Hietpas becomes the new President.

Detienne, President of Great Northern Corporation's Specialty Group, which includes Laminations and Rollguard, has been with the company for 24 years. He joined Laminations as Executive Vice President in 1984 and became President in 1986. He became President of the Specialty Group when it was formed in 1995.

Hietpas has been with Laminations for 21 years and Vice President of Marketing & Sales since 1991.

"Gary and I have worked closely on many key initiatives over the years," said Detienne. "He has done an outstanding job leading our sales efforts and is held in the highest regard by our customers and his co-workers. He will be an excellent successor and I could not be happier for him, and for everyone here, to have him be chosen as our next leader."

Detienne and Hietpas purposely planned a lengthy transition period so that it would be as seamless as possible while having a positive impact on employees and customers.

For his part, Hietpas said he hopes to build upon the strong foundation of success and growth that has taken place under Detienne's leadership. "I look forward to the opportunity to make the organization even stronger for the long term," said Hietpas.

Hietpas also said he will continue the open-door leadership style and continue to foster the family-like atmosphere that has worked so well at Laminations. "There is good chemistry among our employees and I want to maintain that," he said.

In addition to Detienne's retirement, another important component of the succession plan is occurring. Chuck Hanson had earlier announced his plan to retire at the end of 2008. Chuck is one of the most senior and respected employees at Laminations, having started in August of 1973.

Through the years, Hanson has played an important role in building and installing machinery, plant construction and relocation, and many other manufacturing-related efforts, including leading the recent "Legacy Project," which involved the development of proprietary, custom-engineered, state-of-the-art equipment. 

To fulfill the leadership need in the manufacturing area, Gary Weber joined the Laminations team as Vice President of Manufacturing in April of 2007. Weber brings a background in paper science and engineering to his role, with more than 25 years of experience in manufacturing.

"Gary's extensive manufacturing and management background brings a new perspective to Laminations in the areas of quality, productivity and lean initiatives," said Hietpas. "These are key areas that any manufacturing operation has to constantly focus on in today's business environment."

Weber is responsible for overseeing Laminations' five manufacturing operations, in Wisconsin, California, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Florida.

The transitions and additions in leadership at Laminations will ensure even better sales and marketing responsiveness, enhanced manufacturing capabilities to support our strategic initiatives, and the ensured long-term success as a premier provider of packaging solutions to our key customers.