Fresh: Give us a brief description of your company.
GP: Georgia-Pacific is one of the world's leading manufacturers of tissue, pulp, paper, packaging, building products and related chemicals. We have approximately 300 manufacturing facilities across North America, South America and Europe, ranging from large pulp, paper and tissue operations to gypsum plants, box plants and building products complexes. Georgia-Pacific's packaging business is a recognized leader in customer-focused packaging solutions. The company manufactures paper for a variety of end-uses including multi-wall bags, folding cartons, cups, plates, and high graphic and traditional corrugated packaging with brands such as Signature Solutions^®, Greenshield^®, GP TOPS and Color-Box^®.

Fresh: Can you describe your company's products and services a little further?
GP: For years, Georgia-Pacific has been delivering total packaging solutions to the produce industry – solutions that meet the needs of produce growers, packers, shippers and retailers. We are a single integrated source for all produce packaging needs including traditional corrugated boxes, bulk bins, display-ready containers and reusable plastic containers.

We also have an Innovation Institute^® which simulates retail and packaging environments, allowing customers to experience sustainable innovation and novel package design solutions in action.

Fresh: How has your company evolved through the years to meet changing demands?
GP: Founded in 1927 as a wholesaler of hardwood lumber, Georgia-Pacific has grown through expansion and acquisitions to become one of the world's leading manufacturers and marketers of tissue, pulp, paper, packaging, building products and related chemicals. The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange from 1949 through 2005, when it was acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc., a privately owned company based in Wichita, Kansas. For us, vision is not a one-time statement of goals and aspirations, but a dynamic concept. We have a strong, rich heritage, excellent people and great facilities. That foundation, together with our MBM^® Guiding Principles, are and will continue to be the basis of our culture. Our customers and competitors don't sit still, so neither can we. We have to continually examine what our customers value and modify our vision to keep focused on reality.

Fresh: What role has human capital played in getting your company where it is today?
GP: Georgia-Pacific's culture of embracing different backgrounds, experiences and thoughts is a core strength. GP leaders work to build into their business plans strategies for recruiting and retaining diverse team members, marketing to diverse consumers and customers, and gaining support from our diverse communities. More than ever before, a key driver of any company's success is its ability to improve and innovate as the pace of change accelerates. This requires teams that include people from all backgrounds with diverse characteristics working together in a principled manner.

Fresh: How do you see the impending talent shortage affecting our industry?
GP: Now, more Baby Boomers (aged 55-64) are working than ever before, not retiring! Should this trend increase, the impending workforce shortage will be delayed.

Fresh: Do you think we are facing a "people with talent" shortage or simply a "people" shortage?
GP: In many companies, the only way to get more recognition and compensation is to work your way up the hierarchy to higher positions of leadership. Our approach is quite different: we compensate and recognize people according to the value they create. If you can create more value as an individual contributor than you can as a leader, avoid seeking roles and responsibilities that don't fit your capability. Otherwise, you may move backward in terms of recognition and compensation. Managers need to consistently reinforce that value creation, not hierarchical position, is rewarded and recognized in our company. We focus on making sure that the right people with the right values and skills are working in the right jobs.

Fresh: Does your company offer any type of training program(s)? If so, tell us about your program(s).
GP: Georgia-Pacific Packaging has several programs aimed at providing our employees with best practices in sales, manufacturing and a variety of other disciplines including Market Based Management (MBM^®). MBM is a business philosophy that enables organizations to succeed long term by applying the principles that allow a society to prosper. We know from history, economics and many other disciplines that prosperous societies have rules and values encouraging entrepreneurial innovations that tend to make its members better off over the long term. The MBM approach is to draw on these lessons and apply them to a business.

Fresh: How do you feel that your company's contribution to PMA's Foundation for Industry Talent will help your company deal with this challenge?
GP: Understanding the role of business in society is an important key to long-term business success. It is to create value in society – that is, to make people's lives better. If you want to be in business for a long time, you want a true market that reflects whether you are creating value for people, improving the quality of people's lives and correctly using resources. We feel that supporting the PMA's Foundation for Industry Talent is part of our social responsibility. By providing support to the produce industry, we are helping to educate our customers and creating value by making their businesses more successful. That is the only sustainable way to do business.