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GBIG News

Category: General

Membership & Events Director (Part-Time Contractor)

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Green Bay Innovation Group is growing, so we are hiring! Our business consortium is seeking to hire a motivated and relationship-driven Membership Director. This is a contract position beginning in January 2026.

Green Bay Innovation Group (GBIG)
Northeast Wisconsin | Hybrid | Local Travel | Flexible Hours

Panel sitting at table

About Us

Green Bay Innovation Group (GBIG) is a regional business consortium supporting the Great Lakes Region’s Packaging, Paper, Plastics, Printing, Pulp (5P) and the Converting industries. We bring together business leaders to collaborate, share knowledge, and strengthen our community through charitable giving, education, networking, and events.

We’re seeking a motivated and relationship-driven Membership Director to help us grow our network, expand memberships, and support GBIG events.

What You’ll Do

As GBIG’s Membership Director, you’ll play a key role in connecting with local businesses and organizations, coordinating events, and helping promote our mission. You’ll work closely with our leadership team while maintaining a flexible part-time schedule.

Your main responsibilities include:

  • Build and strengthen relationships with GBIG members and event attendees.
  • Promote membership opportunities and events.
  • Assist with planning and coordination for GBIG’s Expo, tours, and community events.
  • Attend local meetings and networking events.
  • Manage member and sponsor data using ACT Database Software and other tools.
  • Collaborate with GBIG partners for marketing and event systems.
  • Represent GBIG at events and within the Northeast Wisconsin business community.

What We’re Looking For

  • You live in Northeast Wisconsin and enjoy engaging with local businesses and organizations.
  • Experience in membership development, marketing, or event planning.
  • Excellent communication and relationship-building skills.
  • Organized, self-motivated, and comfortable working independently.
  • Willingness to learn new software tools (experience with ACT or similar CRMs is a plus).
  • Familiarity with Wisconsin’s 5P industries and converting.

What We Offer

  • Flexible schedule – approximately 20 hours per week
  • Hourly pay plus commission for new members and Expo exhibitors
  • Reimbursement for approved business expenses such as travel and meetings
  • Opportunity to help shape GBIG’s growth and impact the regional business community

Contract Details

This is a contract position beginning in January 2026. A written agreement will outline compensation, duties, and independent contractor status.

How to Apply

If you’re passionate about connecting people, supporting Wisconsin businesses, and helping grow an innovative community network, we’d love to hear from you! To apply, please send your resume and a brief introduction or cover letter explaining your interest in this role to: martinpochs@gmail.com

November 19th, 2025 Newsletter

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Read the November 19th, 2025 Green Bay Innovation Group Newsletter here.

Read newsletter

GBIG NEWS | 93 Stories and Links on the Internet 11/19/2025

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GBIG News

Get links to the latest news, events, stories, and interviews from our 5P news members. Our goal is to remind the decision-makers in Wisconsin of the importance of our industry both historically, and more importantly, into the future.

Read the latest 93 Stories and Links on the Internet below.

Events

Featured Stories

Pulp

Plastic

AI

Forest

PFAS

Education

Members

St. Norberts Series: Jeanne Stangel

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Finding purpose with visionary business leader Jeanne Stangel

Jeanne Stangel

With 35-plus years of experience in sales, marketing and philanthropic development that has spanned the public, private and nonprofit sectors, Jeanne Stangel knows what it takes to lead with purpose and impact.

We’re excited that she’ll be joining us to share her wisdom at SNC’s next CEO Breakfast Series session on Dec. 11. The president and CEO of Curative Connections, Stangel will present a powerful reflection on aligning your passions with leadership, “Purpose — Finding Where You Belong.”

Register to join us!

This session will be held on campus at the F. K. Bemis International Center in Hendrickson Dining Room starting at 7:30 a.m.

We had record attendance at CEO Breakfast last season, so don’t delay in reserving your spot! Check out the other distinguished leaders who are appearing this season.

Register For This Session

TTO BMA: Update on International Pulp Market

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Following a decline in market pulp prices, buyers and traders in China have restocked hardwood pulp over the last months. This restocking activity, while not sufficient to enable producers to fully implement the announced price increase, helped stabilize prices, keeping them unchanged during this period. For instance, hardwood pulp prices in China remained steady at approximately $510 per ton in the last 30 days (TTO Now China- BEK), despite efforts to raise prices.

TTO NOW is a set of weekly and daily pulp indices for select markets along with select end-use grades. TTO Now indices differ from traditional TTO indices in that they are not strictly transactions-based and are intended to be used as a supplemental reference.
TTO NOW is a set of weekly and daily pulp indices for select markets along with select end-use grades. TTO Now indices differ from traditional TTO indices in that they are not strictly transactions-based and are intended to be used as a supplemental reference.

The dynamics of softwood pulp are different. Chinese pulp producers have moved production from hardwood to softwood, resulting in an increase in local softwood pulp availability. This shift has led to an oversupply in the domestic market, exerting downward pressure on prices. As a result, production shutdowns in Europe and North America have become more frequent, signaling that current price levels are unsustainable over the long term (registered users, see TTO BMA Downtime Report for details).

Meanwhile, recent trade tensions have further complicated the global market landscape. The ongoing trade war has introduced uncertainty for major market generators and has prompted companies to redirect exports to secondary markets. For example, tissue exports that would traditionally flow from Brazil, China, and Indonesia to the United States have instead shifted to Europe. This reallocation has impacted local market dynamics.

For additional information or to subscribe to our services, please contact info@ttobma.com.

Kevin Nelson 2025 Distinguished Achievement Award

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BSChE ’79
Senior Fellow, Amcor Global Core R&D

A chemical engineer who is a technical leader in creating high-barrier flexible packaging structures.

From end-to-end refrigeration to automated preparation and packaging systems, the modern food system is full of mind-blowing engineering feats that transport products from farm fields and processing plants into our cupboards quickly and safely. But perhaps the most impressive—and overlooked—innovations are the plastic bags and pouches used to package everything from fresh potatoes and broccoli to applesauce and snack chips.

Kevin Nelson

Over the last 45 years as a researcher with the Neenah, Wisconsin-based Bemis Company (now Amcor), Kevin Nelson has helped engineer these plastic films, each with its own unique properties. Some are designed to keep out oxygen, moisture or light; some corral odors, others are gas-permeable, and some are extra strong to ensure they survive particularly sharp cracker corners.

“Most people probably aren’t aware of the complexity that characterizes a lot of these materials. Typical packaging film is probably on the same order of thickness as a human hair,” says Nelson. “Well, that plastic bag that wrapped the cheese you bought last week might be made of a dozen layers made of different materials in there to keep it safe and nutritious.”

Working in R&D, Nelson has developed many innovations (most are proprietary), leading to 27 U.S. patents and four President’s Awards for outstanding technical achievement from his company. He has also served on the advisory board of the college’s Advanced Materials Industrial Consortium and its Center for the Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics. That center is working with Nelson and Amcor on new ways to use chemical solvents to recycle some of the company’s multilayer plastic packaging.

Nelson says the packaging industry has gone through several major evolutions over the last two centuries, from sacks based on burlap and other fabrics in the 1800s to innovations in paper packaging in the early 20th century.

Plastics have dominated the last 50 years, and Nelson says he’s happy to have contributed—but he’s even more excited to move the industry into a new age. “We’ll have to look retrospectively to see what the big innovation is, but I think it will have a lot to do with enhancing sustainability and the end-of-life of the things we make,” he says.

How did your engineering education enable your success?

Being trained as a chemical engineer, you learn to problem solve and have a great theoretical base—things like thermodynamics and mass transfer just become second nature—and you’re one step closer to solving a problem because of that intuition. I didn’t get trained to be ready to succeed in the packaging industry specifically, but my chemical engineering fundamentals are broadly applicable in so many industries. I always say I understand my academic career a whole lot better now that I’ve had industrial experience. I still get those, “Oh, that’s why they taught us that,” realizations.

What’s your advice for future engineering students?

University life is really different from anything else that you will experience; it’s a very intense time. The challenge of interacting with other folks and all the different cultures brought together by a global Big 10 university like UW-Madison is a great opportunity and generates tolerance and understanding of other cultures. Not everyone gets to do that.

Which do you prefer?
Camp Randall, the Kohl Center or the Field House?

When I was in school, the football and basketball teams were not so good, but the hockey team, which played at the Dane County Coliseum, was great. Getting tickets was crazy-hard, but the environment at the Coliseum was pretty special.

Originally posted by University of Wisconsin-Madison, November 3rd, 2025
Written by: Jason Daley

Seeing the Forest Through the Trees

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As we celebrated the National Forest Products Week, October 19-25, 2025, we are reminded of the incredible value of Wisconsin Forests. We are celebrating the people in the industry and the impact, especially on the rural communities in Wisconsin. Forest products include paper, pulp, lumber, building materials, renewable energy materials, and much more. The Forestry industry contributes $41.4 billion and supports 124,000 jobs according to the DNR of Wisconsin.

While Wisconsin is pioneering new wood-fiber technologies, including cross laminated timber, biodegradable packaging, carbon capturing building materials, the BIGGEST issue is the Paper and Pulp Industries in Wisconsin. Today, we have 8,000 people employed in the Pulp and Paper Industry and in the 1970’s we had 40,000. Based upon a supplied report, we will see a 22% decline in employment to 6,200. We witnessed the closure of 25 Pulp and Paper Companies in Wisconsin with an estimated revenue of 4.5 billion in 2025. Based upon Stastista, the total annual revenue of Paper and Pulp in the United States is $38.2 billion. Is Wisconsin still the #1 Paper and Pulp Manufacturer in the USA?

During the most recent Forest Products week in Madison, we had an outstanding group of speakers. They talked about a wide variety of topics and subjects with no major solutions for the issues impacting our forests. Regrettably, the panel overlooked broader considerations by focusing on only select aspects of the matter. The Paper and Pulp industry was the largest user of our Forestry Industry supporting rural communities and our Forestry Industry. Today, Wisconsin has three companies with five facilities producing virgin fiber. Today, we are importing pulp from Canada, Brazil, and companies in South America and Asia while our Forestry Industry continues to decline. The State of Wisconsin and Paper Companies need to invest in Pulp and Paper Manufacturing. The Paper and Pulp industries are emulating the decline in manufacturing in the United States.

Forestry, paper, and pulp manufacturing play an essential role in sustaining Wisconsin’s converting, packaging, and printing industries. The Paper and Pulp Industries of Wisconsin were the leaders by driving the success of the 5P and Converting Industries of Wisconsin. Without Investments in Paper and Pulp Manufacturing in Wisconsin, it will have a major impact on our Wisconsin Economy. Wisconsin still has leading Specialty Paper Manufacturers, and we need to support them especially in Pulp Production. The current Pulp Manufacturers have old plants, and the State of Wisconsin needs to support them with upgrades. We are grateful for Georgia-Pacific and Green Bay Packaging investing billions into their facilities in the Green Bay area.

The state is actively dedicating resources to planting forests and preserving them. Wisconsin has set its target by planting one hundred million new trees by 2023. We are seeing infrastructure improvements in forest road access and upgrading roads in twenty-four counties. The state is pursuing new forest-biomass and bio-product pathways in aviation biofuel that would use lower-quality forest biomass. The Wisconsin Careers Coalition is working on high-school curriculum and the UW Stevens Point and UW Madison are premier educational institutions supporting forestry. A new bill introduced in September 2025 proposing an investment of around $210 million in tax credits and state bonding to help the Forestry sector. The Forestry Revitalization Act aims to be a leader in biomass. Without investment in Pulp, Paper, Biomass, the viability of timber management, there are fewer places for foresters to bring in timber which will destabilize forest management programs.

Wisconsin needs to promote on our strengths in the 5P and Converting Industries

  • Wisconsin offers top universities backing 5P and converting industries.
  • Wisconsin has one of the best and largest sustainable forestry programs in the USA.
  • Wisconsin loggers.
  • Wisconsin Paper and Pulp is still a leader in Paper Manufacturing.
  • Wisconsin has abundant water and power resources.
  • Wisconsin leads in manufacturing support for the 5P and Converting Industries.
  • Wisconsin has one of the largest Converting Industries in the USA.
  • Wisconsin has one of the largest Printing Industries in the USA.
  • Wisconsin has one of the largest Corrugated Industries in the USA
  • Wisconsin has one of the largest Packaging Industries in the USA
  • Wisconsin has one of the best educated and talented workforces in the USA.

Keller: Crane Engineering Completion of Major Facility Expansion in Kimberly

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Kimberly, Wis. – Crane Engineering recently celebrated the completion of a major facility expansion with a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by company leadership, employees, Village of Kimberly officials, and representatives from Keller, Inc. The event marked a major milestone for the growing organization as it continues to expand its service capabilities and operational footprint in Wisconsin.

The 43,000-square-foot expansion – completed in less than a year – brings Crane Engineering’s total facility to more than 90,000 square feet. The addition features new service bays, a modern assembly area, expanded warehouse and parts storage, upgraded IT and security systems, and a new principal office for service coordination. Eleven new technician workstations were added, doubling the company’s capacity and supporting its continued commitment to operational excellence.

“Back in 2023, we were bursting at the seams,” said Lance Crane, President of Crane Engineering. “We even looked at moving miles away from here, but this is home. Thanks to the Village of Kimberly and our trusted partners at Keller, we found a way to grow right where we are. Less than a year after breaking ground, we’re standing in a completed space that represents incredible teamwork, planning, and pride, and positions Crane for the future by giving our employees the space, technology, and resources they need to continue delivering exceptional service to our customers.”

Construction began in December 2024 under the design-build leadership of Keller, Inc., headquartered in Kaukauna, Wis. Building on a longstanding partnership, Keller once again worked alongside local subcontractors and community partners to bring the project to life and support Crane Engineering’s continued growth in Kimberly.

About Crane Engineering

Crane Engineering is a 3rd generation-owned, leading distributor of fluid processing technology in
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, and Michigan. Its product portfolio
includes pumps, valves, mechanical seals, mixers, filters, strainers, and more. Crane Engineering’s
experienced service team is trained to solve challenges quickly and efficiently – saving companies
throughout the Midwest time and money. In addition to distribution and service, Crane Engineering
provides customized engineered skid systems for various industries and applications. Crane
Engineering has service locations in Grand Rapids and Burnsville, MN, and full-service locations in
Kimberly, WI, and Belleville, MI. For more information, please visit www.craneengineering.net.

UW Madison Brings Together Manufacturing Leaders to Discuss Innovations & Workshop Development

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Marty with a man and a woman

We would like to thank UW Madison hosted by the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association for bringing together alumni, industry leaders, state representatives, and the manufacturing sector together. Marty Ochs Executive Director represented the Green Bay Innovation Group! Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnooking joined the leading manufacturing executives and engineering leaders at the EAA Aviation Museum on October 29, 2025, for a wide-ranging discussion on the future of Wisconsin’s vital manufacturing sector.

The panel members included:

  • John Pfeifer – CEO of the Oshkosh Corporation
  • Scott Manley – Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce
  • Devesh Ranjan – Grainger Dean of the College of Engineering.
  • Jennifer Mnookin – Chancellor UW Madison

The topics included:

  • Advanced research
  • Workforce development
  • Industry partnership
  • AI Transforming Manufacturing
  • Navigating Trade and tariff complexities
  • Keeping talent in Wisconsin

The University of Wisconsin has over 21,000 employees supporting a wide range of roles in education, research, administration and with more than 48 – 50% of UW incoming first-year student are from Wisconsin. UW Madison’s placement rate exceeds 94%. UW Madison latest data shows how UW- Madison provides educational opportunities, builds the workforce and the economy in every country in the state.

Grow Your Business with GBIG

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Sometimes, it is not what you know, it is who you know!

GBIG logo

Business relationships play a pivotal role in collaboration, referrals, and opportunities for growth. Green Bay Innovation Group (GBIG) is a nonprofit foundation and business consortium serving as a catalyst for collaboration across the Great Lakes Region’s Packaging, Paper, Plastics, Printing, Pulp (5P) and the Converting industries.

Since its inception in 2017 with a single member, GBIG has grown to about two hundred members from across the U.S. and the world. GBIG is a a trusted B2B consortium which operates under the voluntary leadership of a Board of Directors and Executive Director Marty Ochs, who has 50 years of industry experience. The consortium seeks to advance the industry and foster business relationships through education, networking, and strategic partnerships.

An Amazing Nonprofit Organization

“As a Board Member of GBIG, I see firsthand the commitment this organization has to the paper, printing, and related industries. Marty’s energy and passion is second to none, and GBIG’s focus on education and networking ensures continued growth in this ever-changing industrial landscape. Become a member of this amazing nonprofit organization to enjoy the benefits it provides.” 

Brian Van de Water
CEO, SPL Consulting, LLC

Why become a GBIG member?

  1. Innovation & Vision
    GBIG is the premier nonprofit foundation supporting the 5P and Converting Industries in the Great Lakes region. Through educational seminars, events, plant tours, and an annual expo, members gain a better understanding of industry trends and innovation.
  2. Programs & Engagement
    GBIG hosts events like facility tours, a golf outing, 5P Expo, and seminars focused on high- impact topics such as PFAS, Food Packaging, Printing, Paper, Converting, and Sustainability. These events provide vital networking opportunities that strengthen the industry.
  3. Strategic Partnerships
    GBIG believes that success is best when it is shared to all. GBIG Executive Director Marty Ochs’ introductions are yielding multiple business transactions. Strategic partnerships and lucrative financial opportunities are beneficial for GBIG members.
  4. Community Investment
    GBIG helps the community thrive. GBIG donates thousands of dollars annually to nonprofit organizations. GBIG supports homeless shelters, drug and alcohol addiction centers, environmental education programs, people with disabilities, universities, and other nonprofits.
  5. Communication & Promotion
    GBIG News, the premier industry e-newsletter, disseminates the latest industry news, innovations, and events to 6,000 inboxes. GBIG News is free and supports GBIG members who supply timely updates and milestones to promote their companies.

Become a GBIG Member Today

To become a Green Bay Innovation Group member, call Marty Ochs at 608-698-3333, email martinpochs@gmail.com, or register at GBIG Events The annual cost of GBIG Sponsorship is $500 for a Silver Membership, $1,000 for a Gold Membership, and $2,500 for a Platinum Membership.

Green Bay Innovation Group

Bringing Green Bay Companies Together. Green Bay Innovation Group is committed to building an authentic networking experience where innovation can thrive.

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Phone: 608-698-3333 
martinpochs@gmail.com
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