CEO of West Pharmaceutical looks back
"Absolutely not" is what scientist and engineer Donald E. Morel Jr. said when he was first approached to join West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. as its research director. "I have no interest in making rubber and metal for the rest of my professional life," he said.
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"Absolutely not" is what scientist and engineer Donald E. Morel Jr. said when he was first approached to join West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. as its research director. "I have no interest in making rubber and metal for the rest of my professional life," he said.
Funny how that worked out.
Sometime in the spring, Morel, 57, will retire as chief executive of the Exton drug-packaging company (think syringes, vials, stoppers, drug patches).
"From start to finish, it's been a wonderful journey with the company," said Morel, who rejected the first offer in 1991, joined as research director in 1992, and became chief executive in 2002. The $1.4 billion company operates 37 factories in the United States, Asia, and Europe.
Question: Given your early attitude, what do you say about rubber and metal now to motivate your employees?
Answer: It looks mundane when you look at a piece of rubber. [But] every day, 100 million pieces of something West makes gets consumed in the markets, whether it's a syringe, whether it's a drug package, a diagnostic test, an epi-pen. You know that when your family goes into the hospital, odds are that many things that West makes are going to get used to help treat them. When your child goes for a shot, they are using two or three West components. Kids don't like to get poked with a needle, but everything we do, you think about it being used on your own child. That message resonates with people.
Q: Why leave?
A: I had always planned to go somewhere in the 12- to 14-year time frame. These jobs are extraordinarily difficult, as you can imagine.
Q: Are you tired of the job?
A: I doubt I would want to lead a large public company again. But the thrill of a small biotech trying to get a novel therapy to market . . . if that came up, who knows? I'd like to get my technical feet into the water again. The sad thing about these [CEO] jobs is that the board and your investors take a good portion of your time. I don't get the chance to do any science.
Q: You are building a $35 million factory in Ireland. Why?
A: They have an extraordinarily strong, developing life-sciences industry. Many of [our pharmaceutical] customers are in Ireland. So we are locating where our customers are.
Q: What about the workforce?
A: They have very good technical training for factory workers that need to use programming skills, machine tool skills. The Irish development authority, when we first started thinking about site selection, put together an extremely innovative program with a local technical institute to help develop our people.
Q: Is there similar talent here?
A: Yes. You can find it if you look hard. It's a bit more competitive on the salary front.
Q: Interesting vo-tech idea.
A: We have done it in Williamsport with the Pennsylvania College of Technology. There's a plastics engineering program for toolmakers that we fund so we get the skill sets that we need.
Q: Is it near a West factory?
A: Jersey Shore, Pa. It's one of our most advanced facilities.
Q: You almost got to be an astronaut, working on space station power systems for NASA.
A: I went through the process to be a mission specialist - the science part. I got kicked out because my right eye wouldn't pass the flight physical.
DONALD E. MOREL JR.
Title: Chief executive.
Home: Buckingham.
Family: Wife, Lauren; sons, Connor, 19, Ethan, 16.
Diplomas: Lafayette College, engineering: Cornell University, master's and doctorate's in material science, doctorate in veterinary medicine.
As a child: "My parents gave me a chemistry set. They took the Bunsen burner away. I found it. I found some rubbing alcohol and set my head on fire doing a chemistry experiment. Burned the eyebrows right off.
Up next: Restoring a barn, writing two books, more board jobs.
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THE COMPANY
Name: West Pharmaceuticals Services Inc.
What: Makes drug delivery products, such as syringes, skin patches; lab services, contract manufacturing.
Headquarters: Exton.
Also: 50 facilities in North, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia.
2014 dollars: $127.1 million profit on $1.4 billion in revenue.
Employees: 7,000 worldwide, 400 here.
Up next: A new CEO.
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MORE ONLINE
Lessons learned from a deadly plant explosion. www.philly.com/jobbingEndText
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