By Bill Bregar
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: June 26, 2014 2:13 pm ET
Updated: June 26, 2014 2:17 pm ET
DETROIT — Plastics News announces a new award for past winners of our Processor of the Year Award: the Sustained Excellence Award.
For 18 years, Plastics News has named a Processor of the Year. Past winners amount to a Who’s Who of the best plastics processors in North America. Once your company wins, you are not allowed to win the top award again, under the principle that many other good companies deserve a chance and the attention that comes with it.
But our past winners deserve more recognition. They seek the limelight. And so this new award is for them.
For this new Sustained Excellence Award, we aren’t going to use the same seven criteria that applies to candidates for the full-fledged Processor of the Year. These past winners already proved their excellence at that lengthy process.
Instead, we want to see if these great companies can sustain their level of excellence — and how they do that. It’s certainly hard enough to win a major award. It takes extraordinary focus to keep it going, year after year. Growth is important to provide opportunities for key employees, the much-vaunted career path that all good plastics companies try to lay out.
How do past Processors of the Year keep growing?
We’re outlining three criteria for the Continuing Excellence Award:
Financial Excellence. Proof the company remains financially solid. Instead of asking for just the last three to five years of sales, we’re asking for sales and net income data for every year since the company won Processor of the Year. Why? Well, we’re recognizing a past winner for ongoing excellence, and a stable financial position is an important part of that.
As always, we will not divulge the profit numbers to anyone outside the circle of judges. We would want to publish the sales numbers, however.
One extraordinary new development, in the time since you won the award. This can be a new product, expansion or new plant, major new technology, an interesting new customer an exciting research and development project—things like that. We know you’re an award winning company! What have you done in the years since then?
Name one key person who has remained at the company since you won, and who plays a key role. We’re not necessarily looking at the owner or CEO here. This can be someone who has worked his or her way up over the years; someone who is a critical part of your company’s “story.” A major contributor to your success.
That’s it. Judging of the new Sustaining Excellence Award is by Plastics News’ editorial staff — the same way we have done it since we launched the Processor of the Year Award in 1996. Bill Bregar, our senior reporter who coordinates the award, also is in charge of the Sustaining Excellence Award.
The deadline is Sept. 21, when we want to receive the completed submissions.
The plan is to have three finalists. We will announce the winner of the Sustained Excellence Award at the Plastics News Executive Forum, Feb. 3-7 in Las Vegas. | 
