The parent company of Port Townsend Paper Mill, Crown Paper, has been acquired by a holding company out of Greenwich, Connecticut named Atlas Corporation. Atlas is a holding company that owns many natural resource companies, including recent acquisition of Foster Farms chicken processing. They also own and operate a diversified group of manufacturing and distribution businesses around the world. Many of these businesses are paper mills and many more operate in related industries, such as packaging, printing, and receipts and labels.
With Crown, Atlas now owns and operates 26 manufacturing and distribution businesses with approximately 50,000 associates across more than 300 global locations. While Atlas was founded in 2002, many of their companies have been in business for more than 100 years and are pillars of their local communities.
From their press release:
“Atlas has a long and established track record of investing in the pulp, paper and packaging industries, partnering with exceptional leadership teams to revitalize and strengthen companies for the long term. We’ve invested significant resources and partnered with companies at an inflection point in their journey, and we view Crown as another opportunity to put this experience to work. Today, these companies, including Finch Paper, Iconex, Marcal, Millar Western Forest Products and Twin Rivers Paper Company, are leaders in their markets,” added Atlas Partner Sam Astor.
“Atlas has owned and operated businesses that have similar operations and footprints as Crown, including paper mills, packaging manufacturers and wood products leaders with operations in the U.S. and Canada. In each case, these companies have been strong economic engines in their local economies. As such, we bring a unique set of capabilities and relevant experience to our partnership with Randy and the Crown Team,” said Janet O’Neil, Senior Vice President at Atlas Holdings.
Atlas also announced the appointment of paper and packaging industry executive Randy Nebel as Chairman of the Crown Board of Directors. Nebel has extensive experience in the sector, having previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Verso Corporation (NYSE: VRS), a leading North American producer of graphic, specialty and packaging paper and market pulp, and President of Longview Paper & Packaging, a leading manufacturer of high-quality containerboard, corrugated products and other specialty papers.
Port Townsend Paper Corporation is a leading provider of high-quality recycled and virgin kraft containerboard, kraft pulp and specialty products in Port Townsend, Washington. The two converting facilities, known as Crown Packaging and Boxmaster, operate with extensive customer reach and distribution capabilities throughout British Columbia and Alberta.
Filed under: Jefferson County, Port Townsend | Tagged: port townsend paper mill |
So will this new conglomerate start taking even more water resources from the Quilcene watershed? Our river and creeks are barely trickling but there’s still a relatively decent flow PRIOR to the intake that directs water to Port Townsend. The pulp mill has always taken an incredible amount of water daily – and we wonder why our rivers/creeks are too low for salmon to run and thrive.
The town of Quilcene gets absolutely nothing for diverting our water to this commercial enterprise. If the new owners are so huge and rich worldwide, perhaps they can spend money converting the PT bay’s water for their use and leave more drinking/usable waters for the residents of PT as well as our Quilcene river and creek.