It is regret that we report the death of Dan O’Brien, who passed away on 15th May at the age of 86.
O’Brien started his career in the packaging industry with Hugh Stevenson Manchester in 1946 at the age of 15. Having done his period of National Service in the RAF, he returned to Stevensons. In 1956, he was promoted to works accountant at the Stevensons division, Monmouthshire Board Mills, in south Wales. He returned north in 1964, being made Commercial Manager at the Stevensons Darlington branch, before returning to Manchester as Group Financial Controller of Bowaters.
O’Brien then left Bowaters and after a period with Encase at Banbury, he branched out on his own and in 1973, starting three sheet plants – Gwent, Phoenix and Doncaster. During this time, he foresaw the need for additional independent suppliers of corrugated sheet and following the lead of Norwich and Abbey in 1975, set up Cambrian Board Mill in south Wales.
In 1984, he co- founded Crown Packaging Group that grew to become, at that time, one of the UK’s largest independent packaging groups consisting of sheet feeders, a paper converter and sheet plants, with a total of 14 national operations. In 1995, the Group – with a sales turnover in excess of £60 million – was sold to DaniscoPack.
At this point O’Brien retired and, with wife Agnes, took advantage of the newly found free time by acquiring property in Florida where they spent much of their leisure time. Unfortunately, his health in later years deteriorated.
Dan O’Brien, who passed away on 15th May at the age of 86.
