Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Rubber News
Subscribe
  • Sign Up Free
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • Digital Edition
    • End Markets
    • Special Reports
    • Newsletters
    • Videos
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • K Show
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Processor of the Year
    • Best Places to Work
      • 2023 winners
    • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Rising Stars
    • Diversity
    • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • One Good Resin
    • Pellets and Politics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • From Pillar to Post
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Fake Plastic Trees
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
  • Events
    • K Show Livestream
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Editorial Livestreams
    • Ask the Expert
    • Plastics News Events Library
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • Bioplastics Live
    • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Numbers that Matter Live
    • Plastics in Politics Live
    • Sustainable Plastics Live
    • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
  • Rankings & Data
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Directory
  • Resin Prices
    • Resin Prices Overview
    • Commodity Thermoplastics
    • High Temperature Thermoplastics
    • Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Thermosets
  • Custom
    • Sponsored Content
    • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
    • Conair Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Classifieds
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. Blog
April 01, 2021 10:13 AM

Nypro's Gordon Lankton left the plastics industry a better place

Don Loepp
Editor
Plastics News Editor
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print

    It's appropriate to remember Gordon Lankton in our annual Best Places to Work special issue. He helped make plastics manufacturing a great place to work for thousands of workers.

    And not just those at Nypro Inc., the company he led for 50 years. Gordon had a positive impact on other injection molders and mold makers around the world.

    I'm calling him Gordon not because he was a good friend, but because, despite his Ivy League education and position as the chairman and CEO of a $1 billion company, Gordon could relate to anyone on a personal level.

    "He was not Mr. Lankton," said Randy Barko, who worked with Gordon for 25 years. "The first time he met anyone, he would say, 'Call me Gordon.'"

    When I first set out to write Gordon's obituary a few weeks ago, I ran into a problem. Finding contemporaries of a retired 89-year-old businessman and philanthropist can be difficult. But a week later I was happy to hear from Ted Lapres, one of Gordon's successors as president and CEO. He was eager to talk about Gordon's legacy and to put me in touch with other former Nypro senior leaders who had great stories to share.

    Jim Buonomo remembered the first time he met Gordon. At the time, Buonomo was a junior accountant at one of Nypro's many joint-venture companies.

    "I had been there about three weeks and I really didn't know a lot about Nypro. One Saturday morning I was in the office, and this person comes in and sits down, introduces himself as Gordon. He took the time to get to know me.

    "Later I asked my boss, 'Who's Gordon?'" Buonomo was shocked he'd been talking to the president of Nypro.

    Gordon died March 6, a few days shy of age 90. He built one of the top injection molders in the world, but his career transcended the plastics sector.

    If our Best Places to Work program had existed in his era, Nypro would have been on the list every year. Just look at the descriptions of the benefits offered at this year's winners: generous profit-sharing, 401(k) match, employee ownership. Nypro offered those decades ago. Nypro was also the second Plastics News Processor of the Year, back in 1997.

    Young readers might not be familiar with Nypro, since the company's name has faded away, but when I joined Plastics News in 1991, Nypro was the company that other molders wanted to emulate.

    It was based in Clinton, Mass., but had plants around the world, including Russia, China and India. Nypro was following U.S. customers around the globe and taking its core values everywhere it went.

    "When we went to China, it wasn't to be a low-cost molder. It was to be the best molder in China," Barko said. "Whenever we had a meeting, first we talked about safety. Then we talked about quality. P&L [profit & loss] would be further down the list. It was all about spreading the Nypro culture."

    Nypro established a local board of directors at each of its plants, to groom future leaders and to get them engaged in the business. Today those former Nypro managers lead top plastics companies around the globe.

    One great story I heard in researching this column was about why many Nypro locations, including the headquarters, didn't have cafeterias. Gordon wanted workers to venture out at lunchtime and support local restaurants. That's one of many reasons he and the company had a great reputation in all the communities where it did business.

    Nypro was founded in 1955, and Gordon joined in 1962. He became full owner in 1969. Then he turned ownership over to its employees through an employee stock ownership plan in 1998.

    In 2013, when Jabil Circuit Inc. bought Nypro for $665 million, it purchased the stock from 1,900 ESOP members and another 200 key international employees who had an ownership stake.

    Our editorial at the time called Nypro "an admired and respected institution," and it called Gordon "a living legend in the plastics industry."

    Best in the world

    Last year marked a milestone for Nypro, when the company's name changed to Jabil Healthcare. Today the most prominent business still carrying the Nypro name is NyproMold Inc., a top U.S.-based toolmaker. Its president, Bill Muldoon, worked with Gordon for more than 40 years.

    Muldoon says Gordon's mission was always clear: "Grow Nypro and make it the best injection molding company in the world."

    Gordon was frugal when spending on himself — he didn't stay in the fanciest hotels, and he had a simple lunch of clam chowder and a salad every day. But Nypro had the best technology, the best robots, the best molds — and the best customers.

    Thanks to Gordon's global vision, Muldoon said he's visited more than 30 countries.

    "For me, the unbelievable experiences with the diverse people, cultures and environments has been life-changing in a very positive way," he said.

    Exposure to other cultures is second nature to Nypro alumni. Gordon got a taste of that after college, when he served in U.S. Army in Germany to fulfill an ROTC commitment. He had a job waiting at DuPont Co., but first he took a nine-month motorcycle trip from Germany to Japan.

    In Gordon's obituary, I quoted Brian Jones calling Gordon "the king of firsts." Jones joined Nypro in 1987 and served as president and CEO from 2002-06.

    There were many business-related firsts, too many to include them all. But more memorable were the personal anecdotes, shared by Jones and others.

    Gordon, the man who left his wife a love note in the morning before he left for work, and who made sure to be home by 6:30 for dinner.

    Gordon, the man who took seriously Rotary International's mission to provide service and to advance peace and goodwill around the world, and who managed to find a Rotary meeting to attend everywhere he traveled.

    Gordon, the CEO who told managers that "every letter they wrote should be suitable for publication on the front page of the Wall Street Journal."

    "There was a right way to do things," and that's what Gordon expected, Barko said.

    Buonomo said Gordon "made every employee equally responsible to complete the mission. All wanted to help make us successful."

    "I found it to be a great place to work," he said. "It was a special place."

    Loepp is editor of Plastics News and author of the Plastics Blog. Follow him on Twitter @donloepp.

    RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
    Avient, Eaton, Vitamix, Mum land in top workplaces list for Cleveland area
    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Most Popular
    1
    Treaty talks stumble on debate over resin production cap
    2
    GM, Stellantis give $15M lifeline to insolvent supplier
    3
    Tekni-Plex starts $8.5M medical expansion in Costa Rica
    4
    Plastics additives one focus in Paris treaty talks
    5
    Resin Prices
    SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTERS
    EMAIL ADDRESS

    Please enter a valid email address.

    Please enter your email address.

    Please verify captcha.

    Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe.

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber News
    • Tire Business
    • Urethanes Technology
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2023. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • K Show
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
      • Digital Edition
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • Special Reports
        • Processor of the Year
        • Best Places to Work
          • 2023 winners
        • Women Breaking the Mold
        • Rising Stars
        • Diversity
        • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
      • Newsletters
      • Videos
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • One Good Resin
      • Pellets and Politics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • From Pillar to Post
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
      • Fake Plastic Trees
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • K Show Livestream
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Injection Molding & Design Expo
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
      • Industry Events
      • Injection Molding & Design Expo
      • Livestreams/Webinars
        • Bioplastics Live
        • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
      • Editorial Livestreams
        • Polymer Points Live
        • Numbers that Matter Live
        • Plastics in Politics Live
        • Sustainable Plastics Live
      • Ask the Expert
      • Plastics News Events Library
        • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
        • Plastics in Healthcare Library
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
      • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Rankings & Data
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Directory
    • Resin Prices
      • Resin Prices Overview
      • Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temperature Thermoplastics
      • Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Recycled Plastics
      • Thermosets
    • Custom
      • Sponsored Content
      • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
      • Conair Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified