You Never Know

We had a wonderful CorrExpo2013 in the great city of Indianapolis, Ind., USA, last month. More than 900 of the corrugated industry’s best attended this gathering. I tried to speak to most of them. Those I happen to miss, I thought I would make a special effort to see "the next time." One of those individuals that I was able to spend some time with was John Kohl of Harper Love Adhesives.

One of the last things John said to me after the conference was; "I will see you in a couple of weeks at TAPPI’s Corrugated Packaging Council meeting in Jacksonville." How many times have we all made such statements?

We waited on John to no avail; he passed away while traveling to our council meeting. All of Harper Love Adhesives, including John especially, have been great supporters of TAPPI and this great industry for decades. Our hearts go out to the Harper Love Adhesives family as well as John’s family during this very trying time.

John, you will be missed.

John Kohl, technical director for Harper Love Adhesives, died suddenly on Oct. 28, 2013. He was 54. John had been with Harper Love for 17 years. He was very active in TAPPI and was currently serving as an elected member of the Corrugated Packaging Council of TAPPI. He served as chairman of that organization’s Fiberboard Shipping Container Testing Committee (FISCOTEC). He was a frequent presenter of technical papers involving both wastewater treatment as well as starch adhesive topics. He also presented at numerous TAPPI and AICC training sessions.

Prior to joining Harper Love, John was production manager in the cutting die industry for both Container Graphics and earlier for Dynamic Dies.

He was a valuable resource for the Harper Love staff and its customers, widely respected for his technical knowledge and professionalism. He will be greatly missed.

John is survived by his wife Patty and daughters Kathryn and Kristine.

Until next time...

Larry