Lifetime Achievement Award: honors IPST's Jim Ferris: from corporate management to the halls of academia, Jim Ferris has remained a force of positive change within the paper industry for nearly four decades.

His forward-thinking style brought total quality management (TQM) to hundreds of industry managers and practical, goals-oriented leadership to a respected academic institution. Today, James L. Ferris says he is "still as intrigued by this industry" as he was after his first mill tour in 1965. In recognition of years of dedicated service to the international pulp and paper industry, Ferris has received a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented jointly by the Center for Paper Industry Business Studies (CPBIS), the Paper Industry Management Association (PIMA), and TAPPI. Ferris accepted the award on June 30, 2003 at the PIMA International Management Conference in New York, New York, USA.--coincidentally, the same day he retired from his post as the president of the Institute of Paper Science and Technology (IPST), Atlanta, Georgia.

"As the chairman of IPST, I have worked closely with Jim and have great respect for the energy and integrity that he brings to his work," commented Pete Correll, chairman and CEO of Georgia-Pacific Corp., who presented the award to Ferris. "Jim led IPST through the most difficult period in its 75-year history. It is a tribute to him and his leadership that IPST will continue to serve our industry, with new capabilities, now as the new IPST at Georgia Tech."

IPC ALUMNUS 

Ferris earned his B.S. degree in chemical engineering in 1966 from the University of Washington, Seattle, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from The Institute of Paper Chemistry (precursor to IPST) in Appleton, Wisconsin. Ferris is the first alumnus of fine school to become its president.

He landed an internship working as a project engineer at Weyerhaeuser Co. in the Everett, Washington, kraft mill before completing his undergraduate degree. In 1967 Ferris returned to school for his graduate work, which was interrupted by the Vietnam war During the war, he served as a commissioned officer on two U.S. Navy destroyers in the Western Pacific.

After completing his doctorate in 1974, he returned to Weyerhaeuser, where he spent the next 21 years. During that time, Ferris studied the principles of TQM and worked to implement those principles at Weyerhaeuser.

Ferris was leading Weyerhaeuser's pulp, paper, and packaging research activities when he agreed to serve temporarily as IPST's vice president of research and academic affairs during a major transition at the Institute. However, he became president on January 1, 1996. "Them was a strong movement to 'draft' an alumnus for the position, as a way to help maintain the direction and vision of IPC," explained Ferris. "I realized that I could make a major difference by becoming fully involved."

During his tenure, he helped create fire CPBIS at IPST and Georgia Tech. One of the 18 Sloan Foundation Industry Centers, CPBIS has brought together companies involved in the paper industry; Georgia Tech faculty; IPST technology faculty; and related associations such as PACE, TAPPI, AF&PA, and PIMA to locus on how the industry can improve performance. He also initiated a program that combined the cutting-edge research programs at Georgia Tech with the pulp and paper expertise at IPST.

Ferris is a director of Albany International Corp., and a director of the Atlanta Regional Consortium for Higher Education. He will continue his involvement at IPST as a Trustee of the IPST Corporation. He is a past director of TAPPI and has worked to help transition many of the paper industry support organizations through the turbulence of the current industry environment.

Editor's Note: Read the full interview with Jim Ferris online at www.tappi.org. Click on Solutions!, then click on "Online Exclusives" for September 2003.

JANICE BOTTIGLIERI, Senior Editor