TLMI welcomed its members to the association’s Annual Meeting, which took place in Orlando, FL, USA, from September 29 to October 1, 2024. Attendees enjoyed the opportunity to network, learn, and partake in a wide range of activities – from golf and yoga to the second annual Tracy Tenpenny Pickleball Tournament. Plus, the Annual Meeting marked the final event for Tim McDonough as the chairman of the Board.

“It’s an exciting time to be part of TLMI, and I can’t wait to see what 2025 has in store,” said McDonough.

TLMI reflected on the past year, which include a multitude of successes. The association hosted its annual LLT Excursion and relaunched printTHINK prior to Labelexpo Americas. TLMI also added a record number of new contacts to the association’s database. The Annual Meeting featured more than 50 first-time attendees.

TLMI launched a prospective member program and formed two taskforces while also uniting with CELAB North America to focus on release liner recycling.

TLMI offered several popular keynote sessions, as well. Economist Alan Beaulieu returned to give his economic outlook. Read the full story on his presentation here. Plus, Josh Sundquist delivered an inspiring presentation on “One more thing, one more time.”

“We’re focused on community, insight, and advocacy, and everything that we do maps back to that,” explained Linnea Keen, president, TLMI. “We provide a lot of valuable information that is tailored to this industry. Creating resources that are valuable to you, things that you can use to serve your purpose on your sustainability journey. On the workforce front, we’re trying to bring people into this amazing industry.”

Keen also touted TLMI’s market intelligence and other reports designed to help members in their businesses. There is also the TLMI Market Insights Quarterly, which is an update from AWA Alexander Watson Associates – featuring the latest industry data. TLMI has partnered with Industry Insights, too, to deliver the Management Ratio Study

“We do this every year, and we celebrate the Eugene Singer Award and recognize winners at the Converter Meeting,” said Keen. “The Management Ratio Study allows you to see how your business is doing and how you compare against your peers, along with other areas for improvement.”

Sustainability and workforce were also highlighted at length. Matt Todd of RRS explained the benefits of TLMI’s collaboration with CELAB North America. The foundation of this work is a 2-region pilot program to establish mill specs and operational practices.
“We want to identify industry best practices,” said Todd. “The difficult part is finding the liner, where it’s aggregated, and then getting it to market. We’re trying to identify the best way to collect liner and get it serviced. How do you create those relationships in the marketplace? This is potentially a long-term project, initially with regional pilots.”

The goals include building upon the learning and recycling experience of the label industry; Defining industry best practices for convenient collection and aggregation of release liner for truckload and less than truckload generators; Identifying and developing specs for recycling mills that accept and recycle silicone coated paper release liner; and elevating all existing recycling programs by developing an industry roadmap to scale a national recycling strategy.

The Workplace Advisors’ Claudia St. John returned to deliver a presentation, “Workplace Update: Insights & Trends for Today and Tomorrow.” According to St. John, August 2024 saw an unemployment rate of 4.2%. July was 4.3%, and that’s considered full employment –economically speaking.

“Workforce challenges are going to continue to be the biggest challenge you face going forward,” said St. John. “I see people holding onto employees for dear life because they know it’s a tight labor market and it’s going to continue to be. Employees are back to work, and they’re going to stay at work. Everybody who wants a job has a job. If you have open jobs, it’s because your candidates already have jobs. You have to find them and convince them to come work for you. This is the new normal. You’re going to have to fight for all your talent moving forward.”

The natural population growth in the US is going down, which further exacerbates the issue. “We’re not replacing ourselves,” noted St. John. “Around 2040, more people will be dying than are being born. The only way we’re able to slow this decline is through immigration. You all want to grow your businesses, but with whom? That pool is getting smaller and smaller. If you’re not automating, offshoring, or outsourcing, I don’t know how you’re going to grow the way you want to grow.”

The event also included a Label Leaders of Tomorrow (LLT) Lunch n’ Learn. LLT events have become a staple of the TLMI calendar, having previously been hosted by Avery Dennison and Domino. Applications are now available for future LLT Excursions.

A host of sponsors made the event possible. They included platinum level sponsors Avery Dennison, Baldwin, Bobst, Domino, Durst, Flexcon, Gallus, HP, UPM Raflatac, and Xeikon, as well as gold level sponsors Flint Group, Maxcess, Mondi, and Sun Chemical.

Future events include:
March 9-12, 2025: Converter Meeting in San Antonio, TX
October 12-15, 2025: Annual Meeting in Marco Island, FL
December 3-4, 2025: Committee Summit in Dallas, TX