As I prepared to ring in the New Year, I was reminded of this quote from playwright Hillary DePiano in her 2014 play New Year’s Thieve: “You can get excited about the future. The past won’t mind.”
Never were truer words spoken as I took the helm of the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) as your new president and CEO shortly before the end of 2024.
I am excited to be working with all of you as members, new ones included.
I am excited about working with some of the best consultants and staff in the industry.
I am excited about a new presidential administration and Congress and new state legislatures that will create new opportunities for all of us to proactively advocate together for sound legislation, laws, and regulations to grow and protect the flexible packaging industry.
And I am excited about new FPA networking and programming activities in 2025 that will bring us together to collaborate and explore new ideas and build new relationships to continue to move FPA and our industry forward.
The base for all of this will be our new 2025–2027 strategic plan, built on these four solid pillars:
- Advocate and protect: Advocate for the interests of the flexible packaging industry.
- Educate and inform: Develop industry data and market information to educate and inform industry and external audiences.
- Relevance and expansion: Position FPA as the organization that the industry depends upon and the value is recognized.
- Association strength: Maintain the talent, finances, and structure to grow FPA for the long term.
If our work is not built in some way on these four pillars, then we probably shouldn’t be doing it.
Everything new for us this year would not be possible without the remarkable past 75 years that have built FPA to what and where it is today. So, please join me in celebrating that early and often this year, including at the 2025 Annual Meeting from March 5 to 7 at the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa in Aventura, Florida.
We also must celebrate your former leader and my colleague and friend Alison Keane, who brought FPA to a whole new higher level over the past eight years. I am grateful for her and her wisdom.
As you learn more about me in the longer cover feature in this issue, please take to heart that my door is always open and that I not only expect to hear from you, but I also want to hear from you. I won’t mind at all as we share the excitement about what the future holds for FPA.
Dan Felton
President & CEO
Flexible Packaging Association