At last month’s annual convention in Scottsdale, Ariz., Paper Stock Industries (PSI), the association for the paper recycling industry, honored Ralph Simon, vice president, Materials Management Group, SP Newsprint, Atlanta, with its Phil Alpert Memorial Award. He works with nearly 350 suppliers to feed the company’s newsprint mill in Dublin, Ga., with recovered paper.

Recently Simon, who has been in the paper industry since graduating college, was the chairman of the PSI’s Standards and Practices Committee, which sets the grade standards for the paper recycling industry. Buyers and sellers of millions of tons of recovered paper use these standards worldwide daily.

Johnny Gold, vice president, The Newark Group (and a past Phil Alpert Memorial Award recipient) was involved with this committee. He points out there were a lot of loopholes that needed to be tightened up.

“Ralph was dedicated to it and did a 100 percent job to get it straightened out,” he says. “He took the chair position seriously and made it right for our industry.”