21, show hours are 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. The Exposition will cover five floors in three buildings at Chicago's McCormick Place. A total of 1군-plus companies will be exhibiting, covering a total of 1.1 million square feet, easily making it the largest packaging show ever in the Western Hemisphere. As many as 80ꯠ people are expected, including up to 7ꯠ visitors from some 60 foreign countries. Advance registration is $15; at the show, $25. For more details, Pack Expo 96 sponsor, the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, can be contacted in several ways. A show info fax hotline is available for U.S. and Canadian attendees: 800/664-3976. Information is also available on the Internet, via the web site: http://www.packexpo.com. Or more conventionally, PMMI can be contacted by phone (703/243-8555) or by fax (703/243-8556). c Pack Expo 'shopping service' For Pack Expo 96 attendees who want to simplify their journey, PMMI will have its Resource Center pavilion available for extra help. At the pavilion, PMMI technical professionals will be available to offer advice on machinery or related packaging problems. Inquiries can be made via the PMMI Information Needed Quickly service, and participants can learn more about the association's web site, PackNet(TM). As well, copies of the 1996-97 Packaging Machinery Directory will be offered to attendees. Finally, the full variety of PMMI's educational and training programs will be displayed. PEF banquet honors Hall of Famers and Coca-Cola During Pack Expo, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. will be honored as the Packaging Education Forum's 1996 Packaging Leader of the Year. The festivities will be held at the Annual Packaging Leader of the Year Benefit Banquet on Nov. 19 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago. The award will be accepted by George Gourlay, senior vice president. Playing a significant role in PEF's selection of Coca-Cola were the firm's development of its 20-oz PET "contour" bottle and Coke's efforts in designing a contour can. Also on the program are induction ceremonies for four new members of the Packaging Hall of Fame. The 1996 honorees are Stewart L. Bolton, formerly with Kraft Foods; Joseph F. Hanlon, former manager, teacher and author; Robert L. Esse, consultant and former General Mills packaging executive; and Robert W. Heitzman, Packaging Digest magazine editor. Bolton was the president-designate of the Institute of Packaging Professionals. His career spanned more than 25 years, the last six being with Kraft Foods where he worked as a packaging research specialist; he died earlier this year. He also spent 18 years as packaging manager at Warner-Lambert Parke Davis. Active in the technical committees of IoPP before being tapped for national leadership positions, Mr. Bolton also was an adjunct professor in the packaging department at Rutgers Institute of Technology. Hanlon began his career with White Laboratories, then went on to positions in packaging at Johnson & Johnson (where he started the packaging department), American Cyanamid and Hoffmann LaRoche. Hanlon's Handbook of Packaging Engineering, one of the definitive texts in packaging, was first published in 1973, revised a decade later, and was under revision again at the time of his death earlier this year. Esse joined General Mills' Packaging R&D Department directly from college and spent 35 years there at various technical and management assignments. He retired as the company's senior principal engineer/director of corporate packaging, though he continues to represent General Mills in various capacities. His consulting business is involved with the development of new packaging technology and environmental concerns. Heitzman has spent his professional career bringing technical and commercial information of interest to those in the packaging field. Beginning in 1962 as editor of American Boxmaker. then of Paper, Film & Foil Converter, he joined Packaging Digest in 1973. He has served as a member of the Forum's Board for a number of years, has lectured numerous times both here and abroad, served on numerous package competition judging panels, and is an active member of the International Packaging Press Organization, of which he was president from 1991 to 1996. Packaging: an advanced course For more than 800 students of packaging, Pack Expo 96 will become a hectic, noisy but action-packed classroom. That's because PMMI, the show sponsor, is assisting students with a complimentary registration, and $40ꯠ in scholarships to defray travel costs for students who work at the exposition. To prepare these students to take maximum advantage of attending Pack Expo 96, PMMI is providing orientation materials to the schools these students have enrolled in. The new South Hall will house the Education Pavilion (below). It was first used in '94. Covering 6ꯠ square feet, this pavilion will house exhibits from 16 educational and training institutions and five packaging associations that offer education and training programs. Representatives of many of these schools participated in Packaging World's "Packaging 2000," a series of profiles of packaging responsibilities that will be needed by the year 2000 (see page 54). The Pavilion will also house PMMI's Education Center that offers details on PMMI's instructional training materials as well as literature from other programs that work with the group. Since 1994, PMMI's Education Center has spent $1 million to support training programs for the packaging business. "The students are the future. They will determine where this industry goes," says Mark Jacobson of Econocorp, current PMMI chairman. "They will develop new packaging machinery, better ways to package and design new technology. They will create new standards for this industry--better, more efficient and productive ways to get the job done."
