I just returned home from a couple of weeks traveling and listening to everyone lament about gas prices, the Chinese, Wal-Mart, etc.
As I sat down to catch up I grabbed my back copies of Plastics News first, to get a quick summary, and your comments in the Viewpoint piece [“Plastics work can be lesson in enthusiasm,” Aug. 15, Page 6] hit home. I have been in this business a long time and it has been a challenge from the very beginning. Bad publicity, misuse of plastics creating a flurry of badly conceived and molded parts, shady owners, you name it, we have had to deal with it.
The thing that seems to be different now is the attitude. In the past, everyone accepted the challenge as part of the deal and moved on. In most cases the more creative and committed companies came out on top.
Now, it is almost as if we have given up and want someone else to solve our problems.
We have always been up to the task in the past, so I would like to think we are up to the task now.
Thanks for making your points the way you did. Maybe it will ring true for some others as well.
Mark Bamberger
Fort Collins, Colo.