President’sMessage

Three pillars, one vision: A look back at iapd’s 2024 strategic initiatives

This article is an adaptation of IAPD President Peter DelGado’s Wednesday General Session speech, delivered at the 68th IAPD Annual Convention in Louisville, KY, USA, October 9, 2024.

by Peter DelGado, Curbell Plastics, Inc.
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t last year’s IAPD Annual Convention + connecX in San Diego, we debuted the updated IAPD Three-Pillar Strategy, which reflects our core strategic pillars:

  • Grow and advocate for the Performance Plastics Industry.
  • Improve the knowledge, performance and capability of IAPD members
  • Make the distribution channel the path of choice.
Peter DelGado smiling while delivering his speech

Peter DelGado delivers his Opening General Session speech at the IAPD Annual Convention + connecX on Wednesday, October 9, 2024, in Louisville, KY, USA..

The updated strategy reflected the new strategic priorities that would guide the initiatives and programs that IAPD’s committees, task forces and staff would work on in the coming year. Those programs and initiatives were planned and KPIs were established. Then, the assigned chairs, staff and board liaisons met early in the year to get started on all this great work.

Now here we are in October 2024, and I am proud of how much we have accomplished in the year since San Diego. You can access the Wednesday General Session video by scanning the QR code to view highlights of some of the outstanding accomplishments by our committees and task forces. There is so much going on behind the scenes at IAPD that can go unnoticed. I want to commend the volunteers and staff on an incredible year.

2024 was not a regular year for the IAPD volunteers and staff. There was a bigger directive. When we updated the Three Pillar Strategy, the board asked them to give extra emphasis to the areas that our member company leaders told us were most important:

  • Workforce Development — Defined as attracting, recruiting and retaining talent in the performance plastics industry.
  • Sustainability — Our member company leaders wanted us to continue to provide content and resources on recycling, but they also asked us to take on a bigger perspective of sustainability and to develop an industry vision and strategy. Additionally, guidance on ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance was also requested.
  • Government Relations and Advocacy – Our company leaders felt that our move to a new lobbying firm was the right move. They wanted IAPD to be the collective voice of the industry on Capitol Hill to advocate for the future of the performance plastics industry and to keep our members informed on the legislative issues that would affect their ability to do business.

Integrating the emphasis of our members’ priorities into our association’s work has been our focus in 2024, and we transformed the work of our existing committees and task forces to align with these priorities.

We knew that committees and task forces, such as our GenerationNext, Women in Plastics and DEI+B were already working towards Workforce Development priorities. We asked these programs to integrate content into their educational offerings and articles.

These committees and programs will fall under our overarching Workforce Development Strategy in 2025 so that they continue to align with our members’ needs.

Scan to watch the Wednesday General Session video:

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In 2020, our original Workforce Development Task Force brought you the recommendations that resulted in the Recruitment and Industry Imaging Video Series, as well as the Best Practices for Hiring Skilled Trades. Many of our members have taken advantage of these tools. Has your company yet?

So, what’s next for Workforce Development? We have been working towards launching a new task force this year. But first, we felt that we needed to understand what else our member companies needed from the association. At our June Leadership Strategy Session in Denver, 90 of our volunteer leaders participated in a workshop to gather input for the future scope and directives for Workforce Development and Sustainability. We gathered incredible information.

The feedback for the Workforce Development Task Force was very clear, and we felt that we had enough to move forward. We conducted a call for volunteers, selected Danica Chin from PLASKOLITE as chair, gathered a fantastic list of members who want to contribute and we are ready to launch this fall.

We look forward to providing you frequent task force updates.

As mentioned, during the same session, we also solicited input on the Sustainability Task Force. We had the volunteer leaders work together to identify areas we should focus our sustainability efforts.

The ideas were summarized and sent out to member company leaders for feedback and prioritization, along with a request for them to identify sustainability experts in their company.

The second part of our support to the sustainability priority was providing ESG guidance to member companies, and the IAPD Environmental Committee stepped up to the challenge. They have delivered and are scheduling more articles and webinars on Demystifying ESG to provide member companies ESG compliance guidance.

• • •

If you were at the June Leadership Development Conference (LDC) in Denver, you would have felt the incredible buzz of excitement about IAPD’s government relations program. The Government Relations (GR) Committee had one of the most impactful meetings, where they shared the report on their May 2024 Performance Plastics Congressional Fly-in. Following that committee meeting, the IAPD Plastics Political Action Committee (PAC), held a reception. Our chairs, Mike Howser and Leah Konrady, got the room so excited about the work that was being done in Washington, D.C. that people who had already contributed to the PAC that night reopened their checkbooks and contributed again. Since last year, the IAPD Plastics PAC has raised over US$39,000.

Since January 2024, IAPD members and staff have had 47 meetings with federal legislators and their staff.

The GR Committee has turned their attention now to advocating for the newly released Bucshon Advanced Recycling Bill that we talked so much about at last year’s convention. They will be asking you, as IAPD members, to contact your legislators asking them to support this mission-critical, bipartisan piece of legislation that is designed to tackle the challenges of plastic waste and improve the innovation of sustainable materials by establishing standards for the nation’s recycling infrastructure.

• • •

I thought this speech was going to be my departing speech as president of IAPD, but as with the state of the world today in general, we have to learn to deal with the unexpected, and I was asked, along with Vice President Jim Richards, to serve a second term. I guess this means that we both get to really finish what we started, or just drive everyone crazy for another year!

Thank you to our departing Board and Executive Committee (EC) members. Karen Brock-Amoah and Dale Delmage are departing the Board of Directors after fulfilling their terms. Additionally, Rich Miller of Braskem is exiting the Board to pursue work in the EV battery market. Thank you all for your hard work over the years and we wish you the best!

Also, Drew Schwartz is retiring from the EC after six years on the Board and EC. Drew has been amazing to work with and we’ll miss him on the EC, but he’ll be staying very involved our Environmental and GR initiatives. Thank you Drew!

This year has been incredible working with the amazing volunteer leaders and staff. Although so many great things were accomplished, we are never without our challenges. IAPD and its leaders are challenged every day to create value for our members.

But, I want to share with you the secret I learned from my years of involvement in IAPD.

We, the IAPD members, create membership value in IAPD. It is not really something that the association creates for us. We are the leaders that sit on the Board of Directors, the leadership on the committees and task forces and the volunteers who roll up their sleeves. We decide what the association offers us and what we get as members in exchange for our dollars and time invested in the association.

So, there is the secret. You can help make it better. Come be part of making IAPD the best industry association imaginable!

Thank you IAPD volunteers, staff and membership for a great year. It’s been an honor to serve as your president this year. I look forward to taking on the challenges and opportunities of 2025 with you.

As I move into a second year as President, I would like to thank Gerry Helbig and our Senior Management team at Curbell for their support, and my wife, Melanie, for her understanding and support of all the extra time and travel.

IAPD Strategic Plan

Mission Statement:
Expand the market for performance plastics through collaboration, education and a commitment to sustainability; promote distribution as the way to market.
IAPD Strategic Plan diagram
Grow & Advocate IAPD Strategic Plan graphic
Knowledge & Capability IAPD Strategic Plan graphic
Distribution Channel IAPD Strategic Plan graphic