Honors & Awards
Ninety-one prints were honored in the 2020 FTA Excellence in Flexography Awards, which was also the 60th anniversary of the competition. Among the winners were 32 gold awards (six of which were also named Best of Show), 30 silver awards, 28 bronze awards and 1 self-promotion award.
Greg Collins became the 58th inductee into the FTA Hall of Fame. As a steadfast supporter of FTA, Greg gave a methodical and measured approach to its governing boards, and laid the groundwork for consistency and repeatability in its operations.
There were three recipients of an FTA President’s Award this year. Kim Madigan, director of corporate color management at Smyth Companies, was recognized for being a very active participant in the FIRST program, representing the printer membership within FTA. Keith Nagle, global director of business development at Phoseon Technology, earned the award because he has been a passionate proponent both of FTA and TLMI, as well as directly to companies throughout the entire flexographic industry for many years. Corey Arnold, president and CEO of Bars and Tone Media Productions—the inaugural recipient who is not a member of the flexographic community—was honored for providing professional expertise to FTA in coordinating the overall image and production value of the audiovisual presentations at FORUM and Fall Conference.
Three companies were honored with an FTA Technical Innovation Award:
- Hybrid Software, for its CLOUDFLOW Patchplanner
- Miraclon Corp, for its KODAK FLEXCEL NX Ultra Solution
- Paper Converting Machine Co, for its Meridian Elite
Two companies were recognized in the FTA Sustainability Excellence Award:
- Hub Labels, for its landfill-free initiative, utilizing a system in which all waste is used to produce a safe alternative fuel source
- Labelcraft Products Ltd, for its Recyclable Enviroliner, which is 100 percent recyclable and made with 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper
- Emmerson Packaging earned an Honorable Mention for its recyclable Nature’s Touch Dark Sweet Cherries pouch
California Polytechnic State University was named the overall winner in The Phoenix Challenge College Competition, its team consisted of Caitlin Royston, Amber Huang, Ashley Chen, Julienne Chiang, Rita Yu and Morgan Wertz.
Cat Bromels of Clemson University was awarded the first-place FFTA Rossini North America Flexographic Research Scholarship for her research on whether the differential distortion of postprint corrugated can be calculated. Alice Ish of California Polytechnic State University earned second place.