PaperChain Chats: Greg Lovensheimer, Millcraft
PaperChain Chats | NPTA | April 21, 2021
At first, Greg Lovensheimer said he’d never work in the paper industry. It was more of a youthful rebellion than anything else; his grandfather spent 42 years with Mead (later MeadWestvaco and now WestRock), and then his father spent 45 years with the same company. Lovensheimer initially didn’t want to follow in their footsteps.
But then he softened his stance a little bit and started working summers at Mead to earn money for college. He appreciated that his work with Mead gave him the chance to get his college degree, feeling a meaningful connection with the paper industry he had once sworn off. So when he graduated, he went to work at Mead full-time, and then spent years rising through the company’s ranks. By the time he left the company in 2013, he was its director of commercial operations.
Lovensheimer is now the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Millcraft. Just like his own path to the industry, Millcraft is shaped by family ties. It is a fourth-generation family-owned and operated company based in the Midwestern United States, and Lovensheimer says that fact has informed its values.
Everyone at Millcraft is treated equally and like they’re a family member, regardless of position or experience. As Lovensheimer puts it, “We all have an instrument to play in the orchestra.” And the company shows the same devotion to its customers. Every day, Millcraft holds an operations call to check in on how things went the previous day. If any problems occurred, they are analyzed and discussed, and solutions are proposed so that the problems never occur again.
Ultimately, Lovensheimer says, Millcraft wants to help its customers understand the state of the industry and predict future trends, so that they can be ahead of the curve by the time the trends really show themselves. Millcraft would rather build lasting partnerships than just cultivate as many clients as possible.
This emphasis on consistent, clear communication is something Lovensheimer looks for industry-wide. He thinks there is a good opportunity for the industry to showcase its values, especially when it comes to sustainability.
“As an industry, I think we need to be better storytellers. I don’t know that anybody’s got a better message about sustainability than we do,” Lovensheimer says.