March 20, 2025
As AICC concluded its 50th year of service to the independent in 2024, and with the New Year well underway, I took the opportunity to reflect on those 50 years and on my 40-plus years in the industry.
It is almost a cliché to say it’s the people, but the fact is, the men and the women I have met in my journey through the paper-based packaging industry have been of the highest quality. They have provided leadership, time, advice, and material help to countless others and to AICC.
These tremendous individuals have started up businesses; taken over and run businesses; grown businesses; and been positive influences on their teams, their families, and their communities—in good times and in bad. My reflections on these folks and the past years brought to mind President Theodore Roosevelt’s “man in the arena” quote from 1910, which I ran across recently:
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
The specific words from President Roosevelt that stick with me are strives, effort, deeds, enthusiasm, devotions, achievement, fails, and daring. We all have friends and colleagues in this industry to whom these words apply—in abundance. We are grateful for them.
The barriers to entry to start up a box plant continue to grow. Mergers and acquisitions are not going away. Private equity is flowing into the business, and opportunities are being sought. Finding and keeping talent is an ongoing quest. Manufacturing is a difficult business. The political and economic environment can be fraught.
The arena has always been challenging. AICC members rise to the challenges. AICC exists to bring them together and to assist them—always.
Michael D’Angelo
AICC President
