As a founding member in 1979, he attended PLMA’s first annual meeting in 1980. While representing J.L. Prescott Company, he served as second vice chairman on PLMA’s first board of directors, subsequently becoming Chairman of the Board in 1983. Don started his career off in 1952 with the Eppens Smith private label coffee and tea company in NJ, where he started as sales manager to become the vice president of sales and marketing. Don embraced a philosophy that the quality of private label products had to be as good as or better than the national brands. Joining Prescott as Vice President of sales and marketing in 1966, he helped take the company, over a twenty-year period, from a $10 million family enterprise to a $150 million manufacturer … and the largest family-owned, producer of private label household cleaning and laundry products in the U.S. After leaving Prescott, he served as an industry consultant, and also worked for a variety of private label and national brand manufacturing companies including the Melita Coffee Co., where he helped to market the company’s line of private label coffee filters. In 1999 he joined the staff of PLMA as director of industry relations, a position he held until his retirement.