'A constant champion for our industry'

Updated — Bill Carteaux, the longtime head of the Plastics Industry Association, died Dec. 10 after a nearly three-year fight with acute myeloid leukemia.

Carteaux, 59, had led the association since 2005, moving to Washington, D.C., to assume leadership of the group after a long career in the plastics machinery industry.

While Carteaux and his family had been very public in chronicling his illness on social media, the death of the well-liked industry leader in the early morning hours still left many in shock.

Jay Gardiner, president of Gardiner Plastics Inc. in Port Jefferson, N.Y., and president of the Plastics Academy, said he spent part of Saturday, Dec. 8 and Sunday, Dec. 9 with Carteaux and his family.

“I've never met anybody with the type of drive and forthrightness that Bill Carteaux had,” Gardiner said. “He was a friend to everyone and a constant champion for our industry.”

As well, Tad McGwire, president of Industrial Heater Corp. in Cheshire, Conn., and one of eight members of the association's executive board, said Carteaux's passing is being felt widely.

“We're all as much friends with Bill as we were colleagues,” he said. “To a person, we're devastated by the news and trying to process.”

McGwire said he'd known Carteaux for 30 years and was struck by the email chains and remembrances going around after he died, as many people talked about how Carteaux had influenced or mentored them.

“It's amazing to me, but not surprising, how many people have said, ‘I wouldn't be in the industry if not for Bill Carteaux,' or ‘I wouldn't be in my current job,'” McGwire said.

Carteaux's family said they appreciated the many people who reached out and offered support.

“We take great comfort in the fact that he was loved by so many people,” said Daniele Fresca, Carteaux's wife. “It underscores the tragedy of it, but it shows that he made a difference. What little comfort we can get, we try and see it that way.”

Carteaux was first diagnosed with AML in April 2016 and had gone through two previous rounds of treatment that had put the blood cancer in remission, but it returned again in early November.

Since the 2016 diagnosis, Carteaux had been active with the Washington chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, chairing the corporate side of the group's fundraising Light the Night Walks for two years and serving on the chapter board.

He raised an estimated $650,000 for the Washington LLS chapter through donations, recruiting sponsors, getting others involved and personal fundraising, said Beth Gorman, the chapter's executive director.

“He has been quite an impactful volunteer for us,” Gorman said. “Bill is one of our favorites. We're so grateful to him.”

Fresca said the family started the InvinciBill Bone Marrow Transplant Facebook page during his 2017 remission and decided to share both the victories and the struggles, as Carteaux spent 28 days in the hospital in 2016 and 44 days in 2017 for chemotherapy.

“We made the decision together to post not just the good things but really kind of express this last time some of the problems he was having,” said Fresca, the former marketing director for industry software provider IQMS.

“He fought as much as he could but this time his spirit and will couldn't beat the leukemia monster that overtook his body,” the family wrote in announcing his death. “He fought so hard until the very end, even agreeing to a ventilator knowing it was a last-ditch effort. To say we are heartbroken, crushed and just devastated is such a grand understatement.”

They wrote that Carteaux learned about his most recent recurrence of AML on his 59th birthday, started chemo on his late mother's birthday and passed away on his late father's birthday: “The timing of this is not lost on us.”

The energetic Carteaux had consistently chronicled the role of plastics in helping to treat his cancer, posting pictures of plastic components like Hickman central intravenous lines for administering drugs. His family wrote that he would ask questions like which company had made the plastic masks used in his BiPap, or Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure device.

Fresca said that, toward the end, Carteaux was dreaming about plastics and work and talking about it in his sleep.

Steve Petrakis, another veteran machinery industry executive who currently works as the vice president of the plastics association's Equipment and Mold Makers Council, said he's been friends with Carteaux for decades.

“His never-quit attitude showed through in everything he did, especially the leukemia,” Petrakis said. “It's a terrible disease effecting thousands. And not only did he fight it and fight it, but he decided to be a spokesman, go to the leukemia foundation in his area and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to help everybody.”

Glenn Anderson, an association board member and president of strategic account development at Milacron LLC, said the way Carteaux handled his illness resonated.

“The transparent way that he fought his battle with cancer — he was so wide open in every stage of his battle,” Anderson said. “He's an inspiration to all of us.”

Carteaux had a long career in the industry before leading the trade association. Immediately prior to assuming the top position at the association in 2005, which at the time was called the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., Carteaux was co-managing director of the Schwaig, Germany-based injection press machinery maker Demag Plastics Group.

Before working at Demag, he had been headed of vertical injection press manufacturer Autojectors Inc., from 1991 to 1998, and held other jobs in plastics manufacturing before that.

His family said details of a memorial service would be announced later.

“We know so many, many people will likely want to be a part of it and he deserves that send-off,” the family wrote. “As such, we will likely push a public celebration of life to January and allow the holidays to pass and us to get our bearings.”

The AML was first detected, in its early stages, after Carteaux contracted dengue fever from a mosquito bite during a plastics industry trip to Cuba in 2016.

In a statement, the association named Chief Operating Officer Patty Long as its interim president and CEO and said it would provide further information about a transition.

Chairman Wylie Royce said in the statement that Carteaux “had been fighting with determination and courage.”

“I know you share my sorrow over the loss of this singularly optimistic, passionate and charismatic leader, colleague, friend, husband and father,” Royce said. “Please keep Bill's family, including his wife, Daniele, and his daughters, Whitney and Mallory, in your thoughts and prayers.”

The association also invited people to share remembrances at 
[email protected].