Being immersed in the world of flexible packaging through his brothers and dad at a young age, Peter Emenecker started his career in plastic packaging before a career in the paper tube and core industry spanning two decades.
This experience eventually led him to his role at K&L Services, a Paper Dimensions company.
In his small hometown of New London, Wisconsin, his introduction to the industry mainly consisted of cheese and meat packaging where he worked during the summers in high school and following his graduation from St. Norbert College before going in his own direction.
Emenecker joined a small tube and core company, Centracor, Inc., where he worked his way up the ladder and maintained an executive-level leadership role following The Newark Group’s acquisition in 2002. These roles combined with Emenecker’s positions at Wisconsin Film & Bag, Summer Industries, and Dynamic Drinkware led to his present leadership as managing partner and president at K&L Services in 2021.
K&L Services works with world-class manufacturers, niche specialists and start-up marketers to understand custom slitting, rewinding, packaging, and inventory management.
When the previous owners retired, Emenecker wanted to put his understanding of the market to good use and knew K&L Services was the perfect fit. The goal is to continue K&L Services’ good reputation and bring the company further into the 21st century by incorporating what he has learned in his leadership roles.
“I grew up in flexible packaging but I know there are opportunities to use paper in some of those areas,” Emenecker says. “Our company has started to pivot towards that work and more food packaging.”
The current work environment was enhanced to focus on the employees, customers and people who comprise the K&L Services community to take a step in propelling the future forward.
“The focus of the last two years has been on staff development and recruitment, machine upgrades and safety improvement,” says Trista Rahn, vice president of sales. “We are finally getting everyone on board and in the right seats so the plan is to continue to discover who we are and define what business is the best fit for us. As we do this, we will see remarkable growth.”
Whether Emenecker was learning the ropes of being a lab technician in high school or leading a company, what started as dinnertime conversations with his dad and brothers turned into skills used in a fulfilling career bettering the paper and packaging industry.
