Robert Julius, the long-time CEO of Nice-Pak Products, was honored with the INDA Lifetime Achievement Award yesterday at IDEA19. Since taking over at the top post at Nice-Pak in 1972, Julius has led the  global expasnion of the pre-moistened wipes market. His company now has nearly four million square feet of manufacturing and distribution space in North America and Europe and is the largest global supplier of pre-moistened wipes for consumer, healthcare and industrial markets.

Julius took over as CEO of Nice-Pak for his father who founded the company nearly 60 years ago after seeing a homemade wipe product and envisioning a new delivery system for his cosmetics business. At that time, he didn’t know where to buy a machine to make wipes materials so he purchased a second hand line from Lipton Company and spent three years reconfiguring it to make wipes in downtown Manhatten.

“Our place in wet wipes has gone way beyond where my father ever visualized,” Julius said. “But I am here today not because of what I have done but because of all the partnerships around the world with nonwovens people, our customers, everyone.”

INDA president Dave Rousse said, “Nice-Pak has led the explosive growth of the pre-moistened wipe market by designing, manufacturing, delivering and marketing optimum products at price points necessary to drive usage across all the markets in which they operate.”

After accepting the award, Julius encouraged the nonwovens industry to continue to educate consumers on how to use wipes and how to dispose them, calling for all labels to plainly display whether or not the product should be flushed. “We have created this wipes industry and now we are on everyone radar as a bad guy,” he says. “That is not the case. We all work hard to make sure products are safe and we need to work just as hard to educate the consumer.”