Nelipak Announces New Appointments, Investments at Americas and European Facilities

Nelipak Healthcare Packaging (Nelipak), a global provider of custom thermoformed packaging, is making significant investments to its facilities and management. 

In July 2016 the company acquired its sixth facility, a thermoforming company based in Juncos, Puerto Rico, which will allow Nelipak to take advantage of growth opportunities with pharmaceutical and medical OEMs in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the broader Caribbean regions. Its Costa Rican facility continues to experience growth in its business and Nelipak announced it will expand this site in 2017 as a result.
 
Additionally, in late August, Nelipak completed construction of a new Class 8 clean room at its Phoenix, Ariz., site for its new Sencorp Thermoform line to meet increased demand from customers in the Southwest. In Europe the company has consolidated its two Venray sites in the Netherlands, bringing together the group’s European sales, design and manufacturing into one location at its Spurkt site.
 
As Nelipak continues to grow and evolve as a company, it recognizes the need to invest in talent to support this growth. CEO and President Mike Kelly announced a series of new additions to the leadership team effective immediately:
 
Rolando Salas, currently general manager in Costa Rica, is being promoted to director of quality of the Americas. In this newly created role, Salas will lead the quality function for the four sites in the Americas. Rolando brings a wealth of quality experience to this new role. Prior to joining Nelipak, Rolando held quality leadership positions at DeRoyal, Vention Medical and Abbott Vascular with more than 12 years of experience as the head of quality for these medical device manufacturers.
 
Jose Villafane has been named director of operations, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica. In this newly created role, Villafane will have operational responsibility for both of these regions. Villafane comes to Nelipak from Essentra, where he was an operations director responsible for multiple packaging manufacturing sites in Puerto Rico. He worked at Essentra for more than 25 years, holding positions of increasing responsibility in quality and operations during his career. In his new role, Villafane will be based at Nelipak’s Juncos, Puerto Rico, site and he will report directly to Kelly. 

 
Jeremy Vargas, currently production superintendent at Costa Rica, has been promoted to operations manager for Costa Rica. Vargas joined Nelipak six years ago and has been instrumental in supporting its growth in Costa Rica during his tenure.
 
Rafael Aponte has been appointed as controller for Puerto Rico and Costa Rica, and will be responsible for the accounting and finance activities at both sites. Aponte joins Nelipak from Essentra, where he supported Villafane. Aponte was formerly controller of Lehigh Press and joined Essentra in 2007 as a result of the acquisition of Lehigh. He has been controller of Essentra’s Manati and Guaynabo sites. In his new role, Aponte will be based at Nelipak’s Juncos, Puerto Rico, site reporting directly to Chief Financial Officer Paul Hogan, in addition to supporting Vilafane.
 
“These leadership changes are designed to improve our operational effectiveness, quality approach, and overall customer focus as Nelipak continues to grow and support our customers on a global basis,” Kelly said.
 
Nelipak Healthcare Packaging designs, develops and manufactures custom thermoformed packaging products that provide protection for medical devices and pharmaceuticals. The company offers medical trays and blisters, surgical procedure trays, pharmaceutical handling trays, custom built sealing machines, total packaging solutions and other value added services. The company operates facilities in Cranston, R.I.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Venray, the Netherlands; Galway, Ireland; Juncos, Puerto Rico; and San Jose, Costa Rica, and has more than 600 employees worldwide.

Nelipak Healthcare Packaging is a trade name of Nelipak Corporation.