Movers & Shakers

Vits America names Kim Markovich East Coast regional sales manager and Nick Gerovac director of international sales and marketing.

NatureWorks LLC names Marc Verbruggen president and CEO.

Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. names Kevin Rauber vp and general manager and Anthony Dilenno vp, both of national accounts for its recycling division.

Standard-Knapp appoints David Anderson director of engineering.

Ideal Manufacturing & Sales Corp. names Terry Grunke service manager of its manufacturing team.

Williamson Corp. appoints William Foran director of sales.

OYSTAR Erca-Formseal names Jean-Guy Delage managing director as well as head of its dairy division.

Clariant Masterbatches appoints Peter Prusak head of its North American packaging market segment, with responsibility for sales, marketing and product development; he remains director of market development.

InkSure Technologies Inc. appoints Philip Getter chairman of the board and Yaron Meerfeld acting CEO.

Tom Osborne joins investment banking firm Grace Matthews, Inc. as a coatings and specialty chemicals expert.

Bosch Rexroth Corp. names Dan Throne sales and marketing manager for its Electric Drives and Controls Div.

Motoman Inc. names Tom Bryant vp, standards and logistics group.

Flint Group announces that Dave Frescoln, deputy chairman, plans to retire from the co.

Seegrid Corp. names Jack Antounian vp of operations, Michael Clark director of engineering and Domenic Niro director of sales.

Toray Plastics (America), Inc. appoints Kojiro Maeda chairman of the board.

Container Management Systems, LLC appoints Judy Nabers CFO.

Owens-Illinois, Inc. names Jay Scripter vp of sustainability.

Eriez Magnetics names Andy Lewis vp—international and Paul Fears managing director, Eriez-Europe.

Control Technology Corp. appoints Tom Schermerhorn president.

Sandvik Coromant promotes Robert Page to productivity center manager for its new Schaumburg, IL facility.

Bosch Packaging Technology names Pres Lawhon president and general manager of Doboy, Inc.

Menasha Packaging names Dennis Bonn vp of marketing.

Eastman Chemical Co. appoints Damon Warmack vp/general manager, Performance Chemicals and Intermediates, and Brad Lich vp/general manager, Coatings, Adhesives, Specialty Polymers, Inks.

The American Iron and Steel Institute appoints Thomas Gibson president and CEO, effective Sept. 1.

Motoman Inc. names Steve Barhorst president and CEO.

Barry-Wehmiller Internatonal Resources promotes Jim Webb to senior partner, engineering services.

WeighPack Systems Inc. appoints Alan Benlolo marketing manager and Alex Goyette territory manager for New England and Atlantic Canada.

Growing and Moving

Nippon Automatic Fine Machinery Co. opens a 45,000-sq-ft contract labeling facility in Lake Forest, CA.

Crown Holdings, Inc. will build a new beverage-can plant, expected to be operational by late 2009, on its existing food-can manufacturing site in Casablanca, Morocco.

Cereplast, Inc. remains on track to open its Seymour, ID, bio-based plastics-manufacturing plant in Q3 of this year, despite record area rainfalls.

TricorBraun expands its office in Guangzhou, China.

CCL Tube Inc. invests more than $2 million to develop two in-line, small-diameter tube-production lines.

Perigord Group opens a new sales and operations center in Singapore.

Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. invests more than $20 million to develop a second plant in Elgin, IL, for its Drives Technologies business, expected to be completed in March 2009.

Fabri-Kal Corp. plans to open a design and manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, MI, by Q3 of this year.

Rohm and Haas Co. begins operations at its Querétaro, Mexico plant, producing emulsion polymers and polyacrylates.

Motoman Inc. is relocating its Wixom, MI facility to Rochester Hills, MI.

Wurzburg, Inc. opens a warehouse distribution facility in Baton Rouge.

Telamon Corp. plans to invest more than $3 million in upgrades for the technical support, engineering and logistics operations at its Carmel, IN headquarters.

Western Plastics moves its Temecula, CA-based film operations into a new $6.5-million, 65,000-sq-ft facility.

Pliant Corp. plans to invest $1.5 million to add two multilayer blown-film extrusion lines at its Odon, IN facility.

Ashland Inc. installs more than $2 million in equipment at facilities in Columbus, OH and Oak Creek, WI for its Specialty Polymers & Adhesives business.

Plastican Inc. says that it plans to add two molding machines for use in research and development at its plastic-pail manufacturing plant in Leominster, MA.

Buying and Allying

EskoArtwork will acquire Mikkelsen Graphic Eng., Inc., a developer of the i-cut vision system.

Adept Technology, Inc., provider of vision-guided robotics systems, signs Factory Automation Sales as its sales representative agency to Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, and Menzel Vision and Robotics Pvt. Ltd. as its exclusive distributor in western and northern India.

Checkpoint Systems, Inc. will acquire OATSystems, Inc., a developer of RFID-based software and middleware.

Anheuser-Busch Packaging Group sells its Precision Printing and Packaging unit to Spear.

Tegrant Corp., Alloyd Brands, is licensed by MeadWestvaco Corp. to manufacture and market Natralock® Security Packaging.

Graham Packaging Holdings Co. will be acquired by Hicks Acquisition Co., Inc. for $3.2 billion and will subsequently go public as Graham Packaging Co.

A majority interest in Kliklok International is acquired by its senior management.

Lowry Computer Products agrees to provide radio-frequency identification-based turnkey asset-tracking and work-in-process solutions for OATSystems.

Pearson Packaging Systems joins the recently launched machine builder sector of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork program, which, in part, offers engineering consultation on new machines and redesigns.

Thin Battery Technologies changes its name to Blue Spark Technologies.

Gage Industries, Inc.'s packaging business was acquired by Sabert Corp.

Earthcycle signs J-Tech Systems Pty Ltd. as its distributor to Australia and New Zealand.

Cheers

WS Packaging Group Inc. earns FSC Chain-of-Custody certification for its folding carton and commercial sheet-fed facility in Oak Creek, WI.

Shorewood Packaging received 10 awards in the 65th annual National Paperboard Packaging Competition, including Gold Awards for Warner Brothers' NFL America's Game: Super Bowl Champions' DVD series and Harry Potter Years 1-5 Limited Edition Gift Set.

Misumi USA, supplier of automation components, celebrates its 20th anniversary.

Klöckner Pentaplast received for the second consecutive year the Febrafarma Quality Award from the Brazilian Pharmaceutical Industry Federation in the “Plastics Films to Blister” category. Criteria for the packaging award include quality control, technical support, customer service and innovative industry solutions.

Graham Packaging Co. for a third straight year was named Supplier of the Year for packaging by the H. J. Heinz Co.