Georgia-Pacific headlines chamber luncheon

Rick Kimble from the Georgia-Pacific corporate office in Atlanta provided an overview of the company at the March 17 Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Mustang Cafe.

G-P has been owned by Koch Industries since 2007, transitioning from a publicly held to a privately held company.

“This means we don’t have stockholders and don’t have to do a lot of the filings and stuff that public companies do,” Kimble said. “It is one of the most amazing places to work just from that aspect, in my opinion, and Koch has been very good.”

Georgia-Pacific is a global leader in tissue, pulp, paper and more, and the company believes that is because of the workforce they employee.

“We are powered by great people,” Kimble said. “We are very adamant about who we hire and about keeping them on board and holding them to a higher principle.”

The corporation has four areas of focus in the communities where they exist: education, community enrichment, environmental and entrepreneurship.

“We want to be good neighbors,” said Kimble. “We want to be a part of the community.”

The company also believes that the only way the business will continue to grow and make a profit is by reinvesting back into themselves, boasting that 90% of their earnings are put back into their production.

PRODUCTS

Over 65% of households in the United States have Georgia-Pacific products either inside them as consumer products or made with their building products like lumber, plywood or wallboard.

“We are one of the largest shippers in the world, both domestic and international, with over 30,000 suppliers,” Kimble said.

Some of the paper products that G-P manufactures are Brawny, Sparkle, Quilted Northern and Vanity Fair (bath tissue, paper towels, napkins, tableware and paper-based packaging).

“Another segment you may not be aware of is that G-P makes boxes, a lot of boxes,” Kimble explained. “Amazon came to Georgia-Pacific a few years ago wanting a more sustainable envelope product that is compostable, and we replied, ‘We will figure it out.’”

So, G-P developed an envelope that has air injected cushions inside to protect the product inside to withstand weather conditions for multiple days.

As of June 2024, Georgia-Pacific had made more than 4 billion of those envelopes for Amazon and continue to do so.

Another specific product is cellulose, and G-P offers a portfolio of specialty pulps for use in a variety of everyday products like diapers, wipes, personal care products and consumer goods, including ice cream and other foods.

LOVELL PLANT

Although the Georgia-Pacific company is responsible for a wide range of products, the Lovell plant produces gypsum wallboard for building products.

Lovell plant human resources manager Jackie Cheatham highlighted the local employment.

“We have approximately 118 employees at our plant,” Cheatham said. “We only have about a 22% turnover rate, which is pretty good considering other gypsum plants within our company are right around 30-40%.”

She also mentioned that they have about 10 individuals with anywhere from 15 to 42 years of employment at their site and have worked multiple positions throughout the facility.

The plant encourages their employees to continue their education and offer financial grade incentives to do so.

Plant manager Larry Connors added to the presentation that the Lovell plant was built in 1966 by Georgia-Pacific and supplied products to the top retailers in the region by railcars and flatbed trucks.

“We have had a record performance in net production over the last three years,” Connors said. “We are 100% natural gypsum, and we produce 480,000 tons a year of rock out of our mine.”

Connors strives to have an individual conversation with each new hire at the plant to get to know them and for them to get to know him and set expectations.

“When I ask new hires, ‘Why do you want to come work for G-P?’ about 90% of them tell me it’s because they have heard that it is a good place to work,” Connors said. “That makes me really proud that we’re providing that type of work environment for people.”