Glatfelter family history is as clear as … paper
Glatfelter Chairman and CEO George Glatfelter II will retire at the end of this year, the company said today. Taking over as CEO of the York-based paper maker is Dante C. Parrini, the company’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. Also of interest: A leading York County name: ‘Keeping it in family is the Glatfelter way’ and Private, public interests built Lake Marburg for manufacturing, recreation and P.H. Glatfelter and S. Morgan Smith head list of York County industrial movers and shakers.
Glatfelter, the York County-based specialty paper manufacturer whose 2006 acquisition of NewPage Corp. doubled its size, has remained in the family for five generations.
That’s for sure.
But many assessing the company get lost in the family’s initials and numerals.
I wrote a brief history in my book “Never to be Forgotten,” which I know is accurate. I know because I ran the material past those in the know at Glatfelter.
So, find the skinny below, but here’s the short story for now: George Glatfelter II, retiring as chairman and chief executive officer, is the great-great-grandson of the founder:
1864: Spring Grove
Glatfelter buys
paper mill
P.H. Glatfelter borrows money from friends to buy a deteriorating
paper mill in Spring Grove. He uses his mechanical and business
skills to revamp the mill and turn it into the company that bears his
name today. The plant is soon using rye straw to produce 1,500
pounds of newsprint a day. Newsprint is the paper used for printing
newspapers. In 1888, the busy Glatfelter purchased York
Manufacturing Company, which later became York International.
William Lincoln Glatfelter, born in 1865, is the only generation of
the first four generations of Glatfelters heading the Spring Grove
paper company to not carry the initials “P.H.” W.L. Glatfelter was
the son of company founder Phillip Henry Glatfelter I. W.L.’s son
continued the P.H. tradition — Phillip Hollinger Glatfelter II. P.H.
II begat Phillip Hollinger Glatfelter III, who died in 1997. W.L.
Glatfelter’s name continued on after his death in 1930. One of P.H.
II’s sons was named W.L. II and a grandson W.L. III. Today, George
Hollinger Glatfelter II, nephew of P.H. III, is serving as president
and chief executive officer.
Updated: 6/3/10
Also of interest:
– Worker saved key historical surveys from Glatfelter pulping machine
– Fourth-generation member of Glatfelter paper family dies
– Glatfelter, Farquhar, Shipley: Insights from local greats.
– Samuel Small tops York, Pa. community contributor list.
