54th Annual Foundation Meeting Report

On Thursday and Friday, October 23 and 24, the 54th Annual Meeting of the Pulp & Paper Foundation was held at the Embassy Suites in Cary, NC. It was one of the most successful annual meetings held in recent years, with 68 industry attendees, PSE faculty and staff, graduate students, and 110 PSE students (almost 95 % of the student body!).

On Thursday morning, the Foundation Board met, as did various committees. The house was packed Thursday afternoon for presentations from from Omnova Solutions, NewPage, and Koch Industries/Georgia Pacific. The speakers focused on strategic issues facing the paper industry. The presentations were followed by a panel of mill managers, who answered questions solicited earlier from PSE students.





A packed house for Thursday
afternoon's sessions

Over 110 students attended the afternoon sessions and the banquet!

Thursday night, a celebration banquet was held. Med Byrd served as the emcee, and a variety of traditions were observed, including Meet the Seniors, recognition of donors, and recognition of scholarship recipients. Four new endowments were announced: the Class of 2007 Endowed Scholarship; an undergraduate scholarship from the PSE faculty; an undergraduate scholarship from Jim Bowen; and an endowed professorship from Woody Rice.

Emcee Med Byrd presents an
appreciation gift to Gus
Cottros,who has volunteered
his time to assist with
Foundation activities

Plaques for four new
endowments











The final Friday morning session featured committee reports, followed by updates from Steve Kelley about the state of the undergraduate program. Three students spoke briefly about their unique undergraduate experiences, based on the theme "A Flexible Education." Mikko Koskinen, the first exchange student at NC State for a joint program with the Technical University of Helsinki (TKK), talked about his experiences and about the differences between the Finnish and American university systems. Trevor Treasure, a PSE senior, talked about his undergraduate research work, using GEMS and other modeling software to evaluate options for ethanol production from woody biomass. PSE junior Richard Pridgen spoke about his ground-breaking summer internship with Gold East Paper in Zhenjiang, China.

PSE junior Richard Pridgen
talks about his summer
internship in China

Alumni, friends, and industry personnel are strongly encouraged to attend next year's annual meeting (dates yet to be announced) -- you will leave this event feeling optimistic about the PSE program, about NC State, and about the future of our industry!