Jim Pugh – A Plastics Industry Leader

Director General Philip Law writes:

“I was very saddened to learn of the passing of the founding CEO of the Packaging and Industrial Films Association, Jim Pugh, just before Christmas.

Jim’s great contribution to the industry has been well covered in the plastics trade press but I wanted to share with you my own memories of Jim, a personal friend as well as a colleague.

Jim was from that marvellous wartime generation whose stoicism and discipline saw us through to victory in 1945.Jim was in the RAF and flew a Sunderland bomber in search of U-Boats.  In fact the very Sunderland bomber he flew in is the one on display in the RAF Museum at Hendon. 

Jim later took a degree at Christ’s College, Cambridge and before plastics was , among other things, involved in the electrification of railways, including a line very familiar to me in my childhood, runninhg between Lancaster and Morecambe.

I first met Jim in about 1981 when I was the BPF representative on the PIFA Management Committee.  Jim was there representing LinPac.  He later became Chairman of PIFA and, eventually, its first CEO. 

He had the vision to see the potential that an in-depth approach to the representation of a specific industrial sector with common interests, could bring. Later when he was President of Plasteurofilm he invited me to give presentations at its annual meetings in Munich and Brussels.

There were two major points of collaboration between BPF and PIFA in those days and in both Jim played a crucial role.  One was the formation of a united plastics industry front in the face of the implementation of the Packaging Producer Responsibility Regulations and the other was in the defence of the use of PVC in packaging.

Hence Jim was a frequent visitor to the BPF from his base in Nottingham. A true gentleman of great modesty he always brought a good-humoured approach which helped reduce tension and introduced reason in many heated discussions. In his varied career he’d seen all manner of human weakness and was not beyond quietly ticking off any industrial heavyweight he suspected of misbehaviour in a meeting. When Jim finally retired at the age of 80 he still retained the energy of a man 40 years younger ! 

His huge knowledge and sharp critical faculty combined with great human warmth and understanding. Jim will be hugely missed by those who knew him but his example will remain as an inspiration” .