Speaker Bios

Will Mies is Editorial Director of RISI's newsletters, Pulp & Paper Week and PPI Latin America News, and related risiinfo.com online news.

He coordinates a team of seven news editors in San Francisco and Sao Paulo, Brazil, collecting news on the pulp and paper industry. In addition, he covers the containerboard and kraft paper market for P&P Week.

After joining Miller Freeman in 1974, he served as editor and publisher of Pulp & Paper Week for nearly 20 years from its launch in 1979.  From 1996-2000 he served as vice president of Miller Freeman's paper publishing group. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona and holds a M.A. in journalism from Stanford University.

Drew Miller is a Senior Editor with RISI's PPI Pulp & Paper Week. Prior to rejoining RISI in late 2006, he was the West Coast Sales Representative for RISI's Information Products Group, managed a number of financial reports for the company's Print and Internet Division, and chaired several management seminars relating to the paper/forest products industry.

Prior to joining the paper unit of then Miller Freeman Inc. in 1994, he worked for Abitibi-Price Inc. where he held a variety of positions within Abitibi's marketing department, and worked on several special market research assignments. Drew holds a BA from Hamilton College in upstate New York and an MBA in Marketing from St. John's University.

Doyle R. Simons is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Temple-Inland Inc. Mr. Simons joined Temple-Inland Inc. in 1992 serving in various capacities, including corporate attorney, Director of Investor Relations, Vice President Administration, Chief Administrative Officer and Executive Vice President. Prior to joining Temple-Inland, he was an associate with Hutcheson and Grundy, L.L.P., Houston, Texas.

Mr. Simons serves on the Board of Directors of Fiserv, Inc. and the American Forest & Paper Association. He is a member of the Texas Governor's Business Council, serves on the Advisory Council and Energy Task Force of the College of Natural Sciences and the Advisory Council of the Texas Memorial Museum at The University of Texas at Austin.

He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Baylor University and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from The University of Texas at Austin. He is also a graduate of the Stanford University Executive Program and is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

Mr. Connelly is a Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst covering Basic Materials industries, including Forest Products, Chemicals, and Fertilizer at Sterne Agee. Prior to joining Sterne Agee, Mr. Connelly was head of Global Basic Materials research at Credit Suisse, from 2000-2008. He started his career on Wall Street at JP Morgan, where he held various positions in Corporate Finance, Mergers & Acquisitions, and High Yield Debt Research, before shifting his focus to the equity markets.

Mr. Connelly and his team have consistently placed in the top three in the Institutional Investor research rankings for forest products research. Mr. Connelly received an MBA from New York University. He is married and lives with his wife and three children in New York City.

David has worked in the Pulp & Paper industry since 1969 when he joined the Wiggins Teape Group (a Division of British American Tobacco PLC) at the company's London head office before moving to Singapore in 1975. He has been working in various locations in Asia ever since.

David joined CellMark in 1991 at their Singapore office with the task of building a Paper & Board Trading business based on Asian sourcing. David now focuses on regional development issues across Asia with emphasis on synergistic opportunities for the Pulp Paper Recycling & Packaging Divisions of the CellMark Group.

David has a post graduate degree in marketing and is a member of the UK Chartered Institute of Marketing.

My company, Strategic Economic Analysis, LLC, provides business managers with objective and informed insights about the future of the economy as well as specific industries. Success will be measured by tailoring the analysis and communication to the specific needs of the client. The primary focus of the firm will be housing and forest products issues.

Previous Role at Weyerhaeuser

As Vice President of Marketing and Economic Research, Lynn worked closely with Senior Management on strategy development. As a result, he was a participant in the annual strategic reviews of each business. Lynn was also seen as an effective communicator for the company: speaking on industry issues to both the investment community and to customers. The role also included market research and competitor analysis.

While at Weyerhaeuser, he introduced new and creative ways to help the executive team think about the future (such as the scenario thinking process) when it was crucial to major decisions.

A veteran of the printing/publishing industry since 1970, Bob Sacks was always an innovator. Even back in the 70s he followed a more creative path than usual. He started his career where some people end -- with the founding of his own weekly newspaper in the metro New York area.

After several years in the alternative press publishing newspapers in New York and Tucson, Az., he went on to become one of the founding fathers of High Times Magazine.

Since then Bob has held positions that include Publisher, Editor, Freelance Writer, Director of Manufacturing and Distribution, Senior Sales Manager, Circulator, Chief of Operations, Pressman, Cameraman, Lecturer, and Developer of web site companies.

Bob's resume lists directorships at such prestigious companies as McCall's, Time Inc, New York Times Magazine Group, International Paper, Ziff-Davis, CMP, and Bill Communications (VNU).

Today Bob's firm, Precision Media Group, does private consulting and publishes "Heard on the Web: Media Intelligence", a daily e-newsletter that delivers pertinent industry news to a diverse, worldwide, publishing community of over 11,750 media industry leaders. It is the longest running e-newsletter in the world.

Bob Sacks is a columnist and lecturer who regularly electrifies the media and marketing industry with the good and bad news about what he calls "El-CID" or Electronically Coordinated Information Distribution. His fun and extremely informative presentation covers the technological past, present and future possibilities for publishing at the digital edge.

Sarilee Norton, President of Norton Associates, has over 30 years of experience in the paper and packaging industries. Sarilee was Vice President of Corporate Strategy for the Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) division of Tenneco, Inc. At PCA she directed the company's business planning and analysis activities and strategic transaction opportunities prior to the restructuring of the company into PCA, the containerboard and corrugated business, and Pactiv, the leading consumer and food service packaging company. She has also held sales, marketing and general management positions at Union Camp Corporation and Temple-Inland.

Sarilee's consulting practice has been focused in paper, plastics and related packaging industries. Her clients have included Pactiv, Alcan (formerly Pechiney), Ivex, Mead/Westvaco, Temple-Inland, Packaging Corporation of America, Rock-Tenn, Acme Corrugated Box, Duro, Exopack, Paxar and others. She has also worked with major private equity firms to evaluate investment opportunities. Sarilee holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the Wharton School and an M.B.A. degree from Columbia University. She has also served on the boards of several industry-related companies and organizations.

William is an analyst, writer and editor for RISI, contributing to International Woodfiber Report, Wood Biomass Market Report, and the Timber & Wood Biomass News Service. He has written for International Woodfiber Report since its first issue in 1995, and in 2008, personally inspired the launch of Wood Biomass Market Report, to which he serves as Executive Editor.

During his time at RISI, William speaks regularly with industry sources and constructs real-world North American monthly market reviews in the pulpwood and wood biomass realms. He also analyzes price trends and market drivers for those raw materials.

Perritt is a graduate of Emory & Henry College with a degree in print journalism. He is a member of both the Forest Resources Association and the West Virginia Forestry Association.

Rod Young started modeling and forecasting in the pulp and paper industry in 1977. Since then, his work in international pulp and paper markets has received worldwide recognition. Rod now consults on a regular basis with companies throughout the world. He continues to assist in the development of the RISI analysis and forecast of the world forest products market and has taken on the formidable task of reading through all of the monthly commentaries produced by RISI.

In March 2005, he became President and CEO of Paperloop, which was later renamed RISI in 2006. Rod was appointed Chairman of RISI's Board of Directors in January 2007 upon retiring from his position as President and CEO after 29 years in the pulp and paper industry.

Rod received a Master of Science degree in Forestry Economics from Virginia Polytechnical Institute in 1977 and also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from Michigan State University.

Mark A. Suwyn is chairman and chief executive officer for NewPage. Mr. Suwyn joined NewPage upon its creation by Cerberus Capital Management in 2005. He was chairman and chief executive officer of Louisiana-Pacific Corporation from 1996 until his retirement in 2004.

Prior to joining Louisiana-Pacific, from 1992 through 1995, Mr. Suwyn served as a director and executive vice president of distribution, specialty products and forestlands at International Paper. Before joining International Paper, from 1967 through 1992, he served in a variety of positions with E.I. DuPont, serving as executive vice president, medical products and imaging systems in his last position.

Mr. Suwyn earned his doctorate in inorganic chemistry from Washington State University.

Mark Wilde has been a familiar figure in the sector for many years and is the senior analyst at Deutsche Bank covering the paper and forest products sector. Over the last decade, he has been recognized as one of the sector's best stock pickers. Mark is no stranger to rankings and he appears regularly on investment and financial website listings as a top ranked analyst for the forest products industry. He is also a regular member of Institutional Investor's All-America Research Team and has been ranked #2 in the Greenwich Survey for paper and packaging.

Avrim Lazar is President & CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada, since Jan. 1, 2002.He also chaired the National Business Association Roundtable and is the Past-President of the International Council of Forest and Paper Associations (ICFPA). Mr. Lazar has held senior policy positions in the government of Canada in the Ministries of Justice, Agriculture, Environment and Human Resource Development. During this period he was responsible for national policy in areas as diverse as climate change, biodiversity, child poverty, employment insurance and labor force training.

Mr. Lazar was Chair of the Committee of the Whole of the Second UN Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1995.
Mr. Lazar taught high school in Vancouver and Zambia from 1969 to 1973. Over the years, Mr. Lazar has given many courses in the graduate studies programs at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. Mr. Lazar holds degrees in science and education, including a B.Sc (1968) from McGill University, a B.Ed (1970) and a PhEd in Ed (1976) from the University of Ottawa.

Mr. Lazar has four children.

Mr. George Staphos is a Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst covering the paper, forest products, and packaging sectors for Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Research. He is also co-sector coordinator of the BAS-ML North America Equity Basic Materials & Industrials teams.

Mr. Staphos has been working in the financial industry since 1985, most of those in research. Mr. Staphos has consistently been among the industry's top-rated analysts by institutional investors, having been most recently selected as the #1 Paper & Packaging analyst in both the Greenwich Consultants and Institutional Investor annual surveys. He has been ranked 16 years straight in Institutional Investor, including the #1 ranking in Packaging for 1999-2002 and 2004-2008 (the category now called Paper/Packaging) and the #3 ranking in the former Paper/Forest category in 2007. He has also ranked #1 in the last two Forbes/Zacks surveys on stock-picking and earnings estimate accuracy for the Paper and Metal/Glass sectors.

Mr. Staphos also worked at PaineWebber and Citi/Salomon Smith Barney. He graduated from New York University's College of Business & Public Administration and Columbia Business School, and resides with his family in New Jersey.

Steven J. Klinger is president and chief operating officer for Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation. He is also a member of the company’s board of directors. Klinger joined Smurfit-Stone in May 2006 from Georgia-Pacific, where he most recently served as executive vice president of packaging, pulp and global procurement.

During his 23-year career at Georgia-Pacific, Klinger provided strategic leadership that was marked by numerous achievements. Over a six-year period beginning in 2000, Klinger led a team that transformed the packaging business at Georgia-Pacific from industry-average returns on assets and returns on sales to an industry-leading performance. Klinger played key roles in more than $10 billion of transactions as both corporate development director and executive vice president. He led the successful initiative to centralize global purchasing.

When he joined Smurfit-Stone, Klinger began leading Smurfit-Stone's operations through the company's three-year transformation program, which includes upgrading the leadership talent, improving the company's ability to meet customers' needs, reducing the company's cost structure, scaling operations, improving technology, specializing the manufacturing process, eliminating redundancies, and aligning sales and marketing.

Klinger is a graduate of Georgia State University, with a degree in accounting, and Duke University's Advanced Management Program. In June 2008, Klinger was appointed to the board of directors of Navistar International Corporation.

Randy J. Nebel was appointed President of Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging, Inc. in July 2009, having previously served as Vice President-Mill Operations and subsequently Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Longview Fibre manufactures specialty paper and containers. Its manufacturing facilities include one of the largest pulp-paper mills in North America at Longview, Washington, and a network of converting plants. The company's products include paperboard, value-added corrugated and solid-fiber containers, and commodity and specialty kraft paper. He is based at corporate headquarters in Longview.

Prior to joining Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging, Inc., he was with James River/Crown Zellerbach from 1978 until 1991 where he held a variety of positions with increasing responsibility, and was ultimately named Director of Paper Production. From 1991 until 1995 he served as Production Manager of the Georgia Pacific, Brunswick mill. From 1995 to 1997 he served as Mill Manager, Antioch mill of Gaylord. In 1997 until 2007, Randy joined Weyerhaeuser as Operations Manager of the Springfield mill, then as Vice President/Mill Manager of the Springfield, Valliant and Pine Hill mills. From 2007 until joining Longview Fibre, he was an Independent Consultant. Throughout his career, he has built a proven record of significant improvement in safety, quality, productivity and cost control.

Randy's industry activities include serving on the Board of the Cowlitz Economic Development Council. He received two Silver Key awards while with James River, one for reengineering the machine work system, the other for modifying the coating kitchen. In 2002, he received a Presidents award from Weyerhaeuser for Superior Leadership.

He is an avid runner, bicyclist and deep sea diver. Randy has a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Montana State University.

Gordon Jones was hired as the president and chief executive officer for Potlatch Corporation's spin-off of Clearwater Paper on April 17, 2008. He officially began serving as CEO, president and director of Clearwater Paper Corporation on December 16, 2008.

After serving in the U.S. Army, Jones began his career in the paper towel and tissue business at Proctor and Gamble. Since then he has accrued more than 30 years of experience in the pulp and paper industry, serving in such roles as president, chief executive officer, and director for Blue Ridge Paper Products, Inc. as well as a number of executive positions with Smurfit-Stone and predecessor companies, including vice president and executive officer of sales and marketing and senior vice president, where he was responsible for 85 container plants with $3 billion in sales annually.

Jones earned his Bachelor of Science in engineering from the University of Nebraska and a Master of Science in business administration from Boston University.

Mike Jones has worked for RISI for five years. Prior to that he worked eight years for Jacobs Consultancy (Jacobs-Sirrine Consultants) until RISI acquired the benchmarking group in 2002. He focuses on benchmarking competitive cost studies for linerboard, corrugating medium, kraft packaging, bleached board, and retail and commercial tissue.  He has a total of twelve years benchmarking experience in a range of grades and geographies. Prior to that, Mike worked fifteen years for International Paper. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Scott Howard has worked for RISI's Macroeconomic Service for three years. He is the editor of RISI's Monthly Economic Commentary and the Economic Outlook chapters that appear in all RISI forecasts. In addition, Scott has contributed to a variety of multi-client studies and consulting projects and has spoken at RISI conferences in North America, Latin America, and Asia. His primary responsibility is collecting, analyzing, forecasting, and communicating macroeconomic data and its relevance to clients throughout the forest product industry. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Scott currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts.

Peter Barynin recently rejoined RISI as Principal Timber Economist, after previously holding the title of Director of the North American Timber Forecasting Service at RISI, and has over 15 years of experience as a forest industry economist. Most recently, Peter was founder and Chief Economist for Resource Vision Inc., which conducts research and analysis on global wood fiber issues and the intricacies of the timber markets.

Kurt's responsibilities at RISI are focused on the area of wood pulp. He publishes a monthly commentary and forecast on the world pulp market, World Pulp Monthly. He also produces to RISI's long-term pulp forecasts, focusing on variables such as pulp consumption, capacity, production, production costs, and pricing. Just prior to joining RISI, Kurt was Director of Pulp & Paper Forecaster. As the sole economist working on Forecaster, he was responsible for forecasting prices and market conditions across all of the major grades of paper and paperboard in North America. His work on Forecaster included developing detailed end-user driven demand models for the key grades, including newsprint, coated papers, and containerboard. He also directed a number of editorial projects, including a major long-term study of global newsprint markets. He reached ABD status in the Ph.D. program in Economics at the University of Virginia.

In 1995, he received the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) from the Association of Investment Management and Research (AIMR).

Robert Flynn is Director of International Timber for RISI. His work involves analysis of trends in international timber supply and demand and trade in pulpwood and sawlogs. Prior to joining RISI in April 2006, he worked 18 years as a consultant with several firms including Wood Resources International, assisting clients in understanding trends in forest resources, forest ownership, and industrial development in Southern Hemisphere plantation forest countries, China, and elsewhere. In addition, Robert worked 11 years as a forester, primarily for Champion International in Oregon. Projects in 2006 include multi-client studies on China's timber supply deficit, the Global Tree Farm and Managed Forest Industry, and the International Pulpwood Resource and Trade Review.

Robert holds a BA in geography from the University of Texas, a BS in forest management from Northern Arizona University, and an MS in economics from the University of Oregon.

Bob Berg has spent over 25 years following the North American solid wood markets, specializing in price forecasting. Bob is a founding member of RISI and built many of its solid wood and engineered lumber models along with segments of the timber and panel models. During his tenure from 1985 to 2007, Bob mentored many of the economists following the North American lumber markets. In 2007 he left RISI to pursue other wood market opportunities, but returned to RISI in 2009.

Ken has specialized in the paper packaging markets for RISI since 1983. He provides detailed monthly and quarterly analysis and forecasts of the North American paper packaging markets as well as single- and multi-client studies. His contributions to the RISI multiclient studies include the detailed analysis of the international containerboard markets, sector-by-sector forecasts for the U.S. folding carton industry, and an analysis of the paper packaging markets for Latin America. Ken holds a Master of Science degree in Forest Economics from Virginia Tech and his Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from LSU.

John Maine is Vice President of RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry. He cofounded Resource Information Systems, Inc., the company that became the analytic component of RISI. Mr. Maine has specialized in printing and writing paper and newsprint markets, end uses, supply, costs and pricing for 27 years. More than 200 RISI clients worldwide rely on his detailed monthly and quarterly analysis and forecasts of the graphic paper markets as well as single and multiclient studies. His published reports include the monthly "Paper Trader", the quarterly "North American Graphic Paper Forecast", and the quarterly "World Graphic Paper Forecast". Mr. Maine holds a Master of Science degree in Forest Economics with distinction from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He resides in Charlottesville, Virginia with his wife and three children.

Surya Raina has over 25 years of experience in the pulp and paper industry. He is a Chemical Engineer and has 15 years of operational experience in the Asian pulp and paper industry.

Since 2002, Surya has been working with RISI benchmarking services and has recently assumed the responsibility as Vice President of Mill Intelligence group. Prior to that he spent eight years working as consultant with Jacobs Sirrine Consultants and Simon Consulting group based in Atlanta.

Surya specializes in cost benchmarking of graphic papers and is well versed with the cost structure of graphic papers in different geographical regions. He has also been actively involved in due diligence and optimization studies

Sandy Lu, Economist, Shanghai, have been working in the Asian Service helping with RISI's coverage of Asian graphic paper and pulp markets. Ms. Lu did her undergraduate work at the University of Science and Technology East China, and holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Cardiff, United Kingdom. She is fluent in English, Cantonese and the Shanghai dialect.

Bernard Fuller is a founding member of RISI, specializing in the end-use markets for wood products (wood-based panels and lumber). Over the past quarter century, Bernard has led analysis on the panelboard (softwood plywood, oriented strandboard, medium density fibreboard and particleboard) and treated wood products markets. Bernard has been with RISI from 1985 to present, most recently contributing to RISI's monthly and quarterly forecasts for panel, engineered wood products and lumber markets and has recently returned to the role full time.

Education:
BA in Economic and Social History, University of Nottingham, England
MA in U.S. Economic History, University of Wisconsin
Completed requirements for Ph.D., except dissertation, in U.S. Economic History, State University of New York at Binghamton.

Esko Uutela was born in Finland and has worked as pulp and paper industry consultant for his whole professional career of more than 30 years. He graduated from the Helsinki School of Economics (Marketing) in 1976 and from the University of Helsinki (Faculty of Forestry) in 1979. Since 1991 he is residing in Germany.

After working for close to 18 years for a large forest industry consulting company in Helsinki and Munich, Mr. Uutela decided to establish his own forest industry consulting company EU Consulting in Starnberg, close to Munich in Germany in August 1994. During the past years, EU Consulting has increasingly specialised in offering consulting services for two sectors: the tissue and recycled fibre businesses. As of March 2007, RISI Inc. of the United States is the new owner of EU Consulting.

Mr. Uutela has carried out numerous private client projects, as well as published regularly worldwide, comprehensive multi-client studies on tissue business developments and global recycled fibre markets.

Jesse Neese joined RISI's Cost Benchmarking Group in January of 2006. Jesse is responsible for the ongoing development of RISI's wood products cost benchmarking portfolio.

Prior to joining RISI, Jesse worked in the wood products adhesive industry for nine years and has significant experience in the production of hardwood and softwood plywood, oriented strand board, laminated veneer lumber (LVL), glued laminated timbers, wooden I-joists, particleboard and medium density fiberboard.

Jesse earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Louisiana Polytechnic University in 2000, a Master of Science degree in Wood Science from Oregon State University in 1997 and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from Stephen F. Austin State University.

Derek Mahlburg is an economist for RISI North American graphic paper service, assisting with the North American forecasts and commentaries. His responsibilities include maintaining the North America and World Capacity Reports, and he has played a key role in various studies.

Derek completed his undergraduate education at the University of Kansas, where he majored in Economics, and holds a Master's Degree in Economics from the University of Missouri.