Fortress Paper appoints key dissolving pulp managers for the conversion of its Thurso mill in Canada

Jun 03, 2010. /Lesprom Network/. Fortress Paper Ltd. announces the following appointments at its wholly-owned subsidiary, Fortress Specialty Cellulose Inc.: Peter Vinall as President and CEO, Vincent Byrne as Vice President, Technical Development and Donald Deer as Projects Leader. In addition, Fortress Specialty has added Pierre Monahan to its Board of Directors. Chad Wasilenkoff, CEO of Fortress Paper commented: “We are very pleased to have someone of Peter Vinall’s extensive experience and track record joining our team. His appointment brings a wealth of experience in running some of the largest dissolving pulp mills in the world and he has a talent for building strong teams and leading business transformations. With Vince Byrne, Donald Deer, Marco Veilleux and Pierre Monahan, we will have an experienced team in place to implement our business plan at the Fortress Specialty Cellulose Mill”. Peter Vinall commented: "Having recently relocated back to Canada, I am excited to now join the Fortress team and lead the conversion of the Fortress Specialty Cellulose Mill into a high quality specialty cellulose mill. The Mill has good access to fibre supply and a reputation for high quality NBHK production which will continue with the restart which is underway. Our aim is to leverage these strengths and transform the asset base with extensive technological upgrades and a state of the art cogeneration facility with the goal of becoming a low cost producer and industry leader in the specialty cellulose sector". Mr. Vinall has approximately 30 years of experience in the pulp and paper industry and was the former President of Sateri International Pulp Group, a global leader in the specialty cellulose business. Vincent Byrne has over 30 years of engineering, operations and process optimization experience focused on commodity and specialty pulping processes. Most recently he acted as VP Technical and Engineering at AV Group where he led the development of the conversion of one of their New Brunswick mills into a dissolving pulp operation. Donald Deer has approximately 40 years of engineering and construction experience in Canada and has managed in excess of $1 billion in capital spending for several major corporations including Tembec Inc. Pierre Monahan is a highly experienced senior board member and executive director. Mr. Monahan was formerly the CEO of Alliance Forest Products Inc. and Executive Vice President of Bowater Canada Inc. during which time he oversaw its integration with Alliance Forest Products Inc., an acquisition valued at approximately $1 billion. Fortress Paper produces security and other specialty papers and products.