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David McDonald receives PAPTAC’s highest honour (February 09, 2010)

Awards for research, technical papers and service to the Canadian pulp and paper industry were conferred durin…

Awards for research, technical papers and service to the Canadian pulp and paper industry were conferred during the PAPTAC Annual Meeting, held February 2-3 in Montreal.

The industry’s top honour, the John S. Bates Memorial Gold Medal, was presented to J. David McDonald for his long-term contributions to the industry. McDonald was the vice-president, university programs and strategic partnerships, at FPInnovations – Paprican until his retirement at the end of 2009.

At Paprican, he held senior management positions as vice-president, research and education, and manager of the mechanical pulping program. Over his 31 year career at FPInnovations, Paprican, and Abitibi-Price, he has managed or made direct contributions to research in all aspects of papermaking and mechanical pulping.

As vice-president of Paprican, he provided the vision for the Transformative Technologies Initiative (nanotechnology, biorefinery, novel pulp and paper products, and optimizing the fibre value chain), which was a major change in research direction.

He has helped build industry/university partnerships that are envied by the rest of the world.

Among the other awards presented during the annual gathering was the I.H. Weldon Award for the best paper presented by a member or members at any meeting taking place from six months before to six months after the previous Annual Meeting. This year’s winner is Mathieu Hamelin, AFT, for his paper, “High Performance Multi-Element Foil (MEF) Pulp Screen Rotor – Pilot and Mill Trials.” 

The F.G. Robinson Committee Service Award was conferred upon Leszek Kosiak, Tembec Industries Inc., who served as chairman of the Energy Cost Savings Committee from 2006 to 2009.

A full list of award winners will appear in the March/April issue of Pulp & Paper Canada.