As H.B. Fuller’s market manager, Garrett Price is the technical expert on adhesive technology, customer applications, customer needs, and industry trends in the End of Line (EoL) Packaging and Container Labeling markets for the U.S. and Canada. He collaborates with R&D, the company’s commercial team, marketing, top strategic customers, and equipment suppliers daily to understand market needs and develop solutions. Moving forward, Price plans to further develop his leadership skills in business by taking on roles in sales and strategic account management. Long term, his goal is to be a business director overseeing a global market segment.
How did you make your way into this industry?
I started in the packaging industry after accepting a position with H.B. Fuller out of college as an area technical specialist for the south west territory of the U.S. In this role, I provided technical support to our commercial team for product demonstrations, complaint investigation, and process improvement projects at our customers’ manufacturing sites. This was an excellent way for me to gain exposure to the industry, see a large variety of different manufacturing processes, and better understand our customers’ needs.
How does your company support you as an emerging leader?
Working for H.B. Fuller has been and continues to be a rewarding experience. Throughout my career with them, I have had the opportunity to learn, develop new skills, and grow personally and professionally. H.B. Fuller has always been actively engaged in my career development and has provided me with the tools needed to excel and advance. I have been promoted several times in the field technical role. I also had the opportunity to gain management experience by leading the field technical team in our multisite account division. H.B. Fuller has also been very supportive of my continued education. I have been working toward an M.B.A. for the last three years, and H.B. Fuller has given me projects to tap into the knowledge I have gained. This allowed me to step into my current role, which is a combination of technical and marketing. I have frequent conversations with my manager about my career goals and what we can do to achieve them. Because of this, I have been given the opportunity to lead several large projects within H.B. Fuller outside of my normal job function. These include a project to redefine how we quantify and capture customer value, a project to design a new process to increase our customers’ product quality, and a project to standardize a global process.
What do you love most about your job?
I am constantly amazed by the sense of scale and the large variety of production processes in the packaging industry. I get the opportunity to travel to customer manufacturing sites on a weekly basis and see how food, beverages, books, envelopes, and paper are made. I like to think of it as going on a field trip every week where I get to learn firsthand from the people on the manufacturing floor using our products.
