Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men do not work out exactly right.

The TAPPI Foundation has been around since September 7, 1990. Since that time, close to $7 million has been donated by the Foundation for awards and scholarships for TAPPI members. Every year the TAPPI Foundation provides approximately 14 scholarships for TAPPI student members from around the world.

These awards and scholarships could not be possible without the generosity of TAPPI members and friends of TAPPI. Annually we have close to 100 individuals and 120 companies who generously make donations to the TAPPI Foundation.

Each year we try to recognize these individuals and companies through our Foundation annual report. This year was no exception, however, we found out that we mistakenly left some of the contributors off the list for 2011.

These were:

Dave Carlson of Carlson Consulting,

Kathleen Bennett of Kathleen M. Bennett Consulting LLC,

Chuck Fiveash of Fiveash & Frost LLP, & Peter Kontio of Alston & Bird.

Please accept my humble apology for this oversight. We sincerely appreciate what you do for TAPPI and for the industries that we serve.

Happy Holidays

Larry N. Montague TAPPI President and CEO

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Mary Beth Cornell of TAPPI received the Stephen Styron Award from the Georgia Society of Association Executives (GSAE) at GSAE's recent Holiday Luncheon, Awards Show & Silent Auction, December 14 at the Georgia Aquarium.

The Stephen Styron Award is presented annually to an outstanding committee, Shared Interest Group or task force chair. It is named in honor of one of GSAE's past presidents. The award represents Mary Beth's active support in her role as the chair for GSAE's Professional Development committee.

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Congratulations to the Member Spotlight Class of 2011 Eleven TAPPI members were honored in 2011 when they were nominated and appeared in the popular Member Spotlight feature on TAPPI's website.  In only its second year, TAPPI's Member Spotlight has been a great success with TAPPI visitors! In 2011, eleven members were highlighted showcasing their professional talents and accomplishments in the pulp, paper and converting industry, along with personal interests and lives outside the confines of their careers.

Those featured in 2011 included: Bill Bittle, Tom Dunn, Rory Wolf, Hannu Melarti, Scott Frasca, Scott Pantaleo, Darren Swales, Hassan Loutfi, Uday Raval, Kerry Figiel and Ian Journeaux. If you would like to suggest a fellow member to profile in 2012, please send their name and contact information to Member Spotlight . The nominee is then contacted and sent a brief Membership Questionnaire to fill out and return.

All members spotlighted are also featured in Over the Wire and on the TAPPI website homepage, as well as in other relevant segment-specific publications such as Caught in the NET. We look forward to seeing you in the Spotlight!

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2012 Student Summit Goes Global

The 2012 TAPPI/PIMA Student Summit will be held this year in Jacksonville, Florida; with tours of Rayonier and Rock-Tenn mills at Fernandina Beach. This year's Summit is shaping up to be one of the best yet with approximately 150 students and 25 industry participants. Students are coming to the Summit from as far away as India, France, and Canada as well as our domestic students from the frozen North: Washington, Minnesota, Michigan, and Maine.

There will be over one dozen companies onsite to perform interviews for full time and co-op positions. Sessions will include, "Hey there's paper in my electronics", "the Future of Fiber", and "Dissolving Pulp". Thank you to the following sponsors: Ashland Hercules Water Technologies, BASF, Boise Paper, Buckman, Chemstone, Domtar, First Quality Enterprises, Georgia-Pacific, International Paper, KapStone, Kruger, MWV, Nalco, OMNOVA Solutions Foundation, Orchids Paper, Rayonier, Rock-Tenn, Weyerhaeuser, and the many TAPPI members who support the TAPPI Foundation with their annual gifts.

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"Renewing the Renewable Industry", a December 7 TAPPI webcast production, featured Agenda 2020, the technology alliance driving innovation and renewal in the forest products industry. The event attracted more than 100 registrants from about a dozen countries.

Panelists included Agenda 2020 president and executive director Ron Brown; vice president and technology director John Cowie; MWV senior vice president-technology and forestry Mark Watkins, who serves as chair of agenda 2020; and Beth Cormier, vice president-R&D, SAPPI Fine Papers-N.A and Agenda 2020 vice-chair Kathleen Bennett of Bennett Consulting served as moderator. Participants heard how this public-private consortium of companies, academia, and government offers a cost-effective research collaboration to promote development of new enabling technologies that can lead to new products, new markets, and new processes.

Agenda 2020's mission is to transform the industry by establishing the research priorities, driving collaborative research, and obtaining funding, striving to make the industry more sustainable—socially, environmentally, and economically.

The presentation is now available on TAPPI's website .

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Learn the Critical Leadership & Management Skills To Take Your Job to that Next Level

Foundations of Leadership Excellence is a course focused on the fundamentals of leadership & management skills for emerging leaders, high-potentials, and area operating managers and other technical professionals. This course will be held March 28-31, 2012 at the University of Memphis campus, in Memphis, Tennessee, and is being co-produced by TAPPI and the University of Memphis.

This course is the ONLY leadership & management course available that is focused on the Pulp & Paper industry.

• The course instructors have approximately 100 years of combined experience in leadership, management and human resource roles within the pulp & paper industry.
• Course curriculum covers industry specific, real-world scenarios.

Participants will develop personal leadership skills through the use of influence. They will learn to impact organizations from a 360 degree perspective and how to address the challenges of team building, accountability, performance management and other critical factors of organizational success.

View the course website to learn more.

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