Tissue makers can be Proud  —  The purpose of TissueStory

By Hugh O’Brian

For many years, or even decades, I have felt that the tissue paper business had a very positive story to tell. Unfortunately, it was not being told very well. The purpose of TissueStory.com therefore is to tell the story in a more positive and public manner than has been done in the past. This will mainly concern the environmental, hygienic, and technological aspects of tissue paper products.

The Objectives are several:

• Create a greater sense of pride and awareness among the people working in the tissue industry with respect to the benefits that tissue products give to the world.
• Eventually also make more people around the world aware of these benefits.
• Build a Knowledge Base of facts and learning about tissue making, of course without revealing any proprietary information.
• Make the tissue industry more attractive to university students and mid-career professionals who are considering joining the sector.

The site will continue to develop over time to add even more information. TissueStory is not intended to overlap with any of the excellent established newsletters and magazines in the tissue business like World Tissue Business Monitor, Tissue World Magazine and Perini Journal. Instead it will complement these publications by presenting a little different angle on the tissue business.

With time, and depending on the initial success, it may also become an information source for a wider audience including the general public, decision-makers and opinion leaders, NGOs, students, etc.

About Hugh O’Brian

The TissueStory is being coordinated by Hugh O’Brian. He has solid qualifications based on more than 30 years’ experience as a Papermaker, a paper industry Technical Journalist, and the initiator of the Tissue World conference and exhibition series. In the course of his career he has visited tissue making and converting operations on all 6 continents around the globe.

Originally from Buffalo, New York, he holds Master and Bachelor degrees in Paper Technology and Applied Engineering from Wisconsin and Syracuse in the USA. He has worked in paper mills and research centers in both the USA and Europe.

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In 1993, sensing the need for a global forum and gathering point for the tissue making businesses, he created and launched the first Tissue World conference in Nice, France. This was done with colleagues from Pulp & Paper International magazine in Brussels, where he worked for 13 years as Executive Editor, and which was at that point owned by Miller Freeman Publications. He also led the development of the Tissue World Americas conference in Miami Beach, USA and the Tissue World Asia event in Shanghai, China.