Rick Willett of NewPage and Craig Hanson of WRI on Project POTICO

In this episode of On Paper, Rick Willett, former President and CEO of NewPage Corporation and Craig Hanson, Director of People & Ecosystems at the World Resources Institute, discuss the benefits of corporate - nonprofit partnerships, while outlining their current collaboration on Project POTICO (Palm Oil, Timber, Carbon Offsets). Project POTICO is a bold three-year, multi-million dollar initiative led by WRI and fully funded by NewPage Corporation to preserve endangered virgin rainforests in Indonesia, a region known for its high deforestation rate.

Project POTICO addresses the underlying economics of deforestation due to unsustainable palm oil cultivation. “We are really supportive of long-term forest management,” Willett explains. “We have very good forestry practices in North America where the forests are well managed and are growing faster than they are being harvested. However, there are still issues internationally, and playing a role in having the world subscribe to a global standard for well managed forests is very important to our company, customers and employees.”

Visit projectPOTICO.org for more information.

Richard D. “Rick” Willett Jr. was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of NewPage Corporation in March of 2009. Previously, he was president and chief operating officer for NewPage since April of 2006. Prior to Newpage, Mr. Willett served as a consultant to Cerberus Capital Management L.P. in the acquisition of the core business of Teleglobe Inc. in 2002 before becoming the chief financial officer and VP of Operations of Teleglobe in 2003, and then executive vice president and chief operating officer in January 2005 until Teleglobe was sold to a division of Tata Communications in February 2006.

Preceding his time at Cerberus and Teleglobe, he held a progression of responsibilities at General Electric (GE) spanning 11 years, serving in executive level positions, including chief financial officer of GE Superabrasives, Inc. from 2000 to 2002, and as an executive audit manager for various units of GE Capital Service from 1999 to 2000. In addition, Mr. Willett had numerous global assignments on General Electric’s corporate audit staff and various engineering and product management roles at GE Plastics.

Mr. Willett earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and a master’s degree in finance from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Craig Hanson is Director of WRI’s People & Ecosystems Program. In addition, he leads WRI’s new Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services Initiative, which seeks to reduce ecosystem degradation by helping governments, businesses, and multilateral development banks integrate ecosystem service considerations into their decisions. He is the lead author of the Corporate Ecosystem Service Review (ESR), a systematic set of guidelines and methodology that helps corporate managers proactively respond to business risks and opportunities arising from ecosystem degradation.

Prior to becoming Director, Craig managed the Green Power Market Development Group-US and launched the Green Power Market Development Group-Europe. Prior to joining WRI, he was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company for five years. Craig earned an MSc in Environmental Change & Management from Oxford University where he also earned an MA in Philosophy, Politics, & Economics with an emphasis on environmental economics as a Rhodes Scholar. He has a BA from Georgetown University.

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