Jonathan Kerr, 64, former president of film equipment maker Hosokawa Alpine American of Natick, Mass., died Aug. 28 after long battle with cancer.
Kerr, a Phoenix resident, began his career in plastics in the 1960s at DuPont Canada Inc. in Mississauga, Ontario, with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.
In 1974 he started and then sold his own plastics company in Melbourne, Australia, and then helped to develop the T-shirt bag at Sonoco Products Co. in Onset, Mass. Serving as president of Hosokawa Alpine American from 1982-89, Kerr went on to other positions within the plastics industry and most recently had started his own business as a building contractor in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico.