Editor's Letter

Paper Pusher

The Recycling Today Media Group, the publishing group responsible for Storage & Destruction Business magazine, is preparing for our Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show. This annual event, which takes place this year in Chicago at the Marriott Downtown Chicago Magnificent Mile June 13-15, offers destruction business owners and managers the opportunity to brush up on their knowledge of paper markets and the forces that affect supply and demand of recovered fiber.

In addition to our usual programming, we’ve partnered with Total Training Services, Spartanburg, S.C., to offer a colocated workshop June 15-16 focusing on information destruction sales. The “Shred Your Competition Sales Workshop” offers attendees information on alternatives to cold calling, selling value rather than price and the three best ways to grow a business. For more information or to register, please contact Total Training Services’ Ray Barry at raybarry@totaltrainingservices.com or at 864-699-8417.

The Paper Recycling Conference offers the opportunity to network with paper mill executives and brokers as well as a variety of programming, with a number of sessions certain to draw the attention of document destruction professionals. For instance, Sunday from 2:30 - 3:30 p.m., in “Sales Strategies for Targeted Growth,” Nick Wildrick of Total Product Destruction, Spartanburg, S.C., offers prospecting and sales strategies designed to help new companies grow and established companies to reinvigorate. Wildrick also serves as moderator of a session scheduled for Tuesday, June 15, from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. “Digging into the Archives” presents a long-term look at the document shredding sector in an environment where electronic archiving is gaining market share.

The plenary session scheduled for 9 to 10:15 a.m., Tuesday, June 15, features economist Don Reynolds of 21st Century Forecasting. Reynolds reviews the turbulent last two years and looks ahead at where the economy is likely to go in this session, titled “The State of the Economy in 2010 and Beyond.” Another plenary session, “The State of the Paper Industry,” scheduled for 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., June 14, features paper industry executives and analysts providing a review of recent challenges to the industry and their outlooks for the future. 

For those professionals looking for more insight into recovered fiber markets and pricing, the Paper Recycling Conference also has teamed up with Bill Moore of Moore & Associates, Atlanta, to offer “Fiber’s Future Intrigues: Scant Supply and Turbulent Pricing.” This workshop, scheduled for Sunday, June 13, from 3:30 to 5 p.m., requires an additional fee of $75 and offers forecasts for major fiber grades as well as insight into sourcing the grades likely to be in demand.

We hope you’ll join us for this year’s event. With the turbulent economic environment of the last two years, the more information you have on the factors affecting secondary paper markets, the better.