[A note from Tugboat Institute: Please note the author’s postscript at the end of this article, in which he comments on the connection of this topic to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.]

When I joined our Evergreen® family business, Hollingsworth & Vose Co. (H&V) in the mid-nineteen seventies, we operated four plants in the U.S. Northeast. The company’s roots go back to the 1728 founding of a paper company in the colonial Province of Massachusetts Bay. The enterprise has continually evolved over seven generations. Today, we are a leading global producer of advanced materials for filtration and battery applications, operating thirteen plants in six countries.