John Bacot: Make the Future Happen

John Bacot: Make the Future Happen

From independent economics to industry leadership, reflections ahead of retirement.

There are people in the corrugated industry who witness its evolution. And then there are those who have lived it and helped interpret it. John Bacot is both. As he prepares to retire at the end of March, after nearly a decade with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America (MHIA) Corrugating Machinery Division (CMD) and a career that touched nearly every corner of the industry, his legacy is less about any single machine or title and more about how he approached the work.

Bacot’s instinct for selling, listening, and learning started early. Long before box plants and corrugators, his first sales job came at age eight. Fundraising for a camera, he knocked on neighbors’ doors selling seed packets. “Each season, the ladies would remember me,” he recalled. “I’d remember what they liked and set certain seed packets aside.” What he didn’t realize at the time was that he was already learning the fundamentals of relationship-based selling: pay attention, understand your customer, and follow through.

Over time, Bacot gravitated toward work that blended systems thinking with human connection, from running a homemade snowball stand built by his engineer father to studying computer science and eventually joining IBM. It was at IBM, in the early 1980s, that he was first introduced to the corrugated industry, working directly with box plants and paper mills to help install one of the industry’s first integrated accounting and pricing systems. Written by Harry Rhodes, the software was being deployed at a time when many operations were only beginning to adopt computers.

The same focus on systems, data, and economics later extended beyond the industry itself. For more than 20 years, Bacot taught finance at Johns Hopkins University, an experience he considers one of the most meaningful chapters of his career. The connection was also personal: both his father and maternal grandfather were graduates of Johns Hopkins. Teaching allowed Bacot to bring real-world business and financial thinking into the classroom, reinforcing the practical, economics-driven perspective that would define his career.

Back inside plants like PCA Liverpool, Southern Container, and what is now Smurfit WestRock, Bacot began to understand corrugated as a business. It wasn’t just about machines and materials, but decisions made minute by minute on the plant floor. He learned how downtime translated directly to dollars, long before “OEE” became common language.

That understanding crystallized years later in a moment Bacot still recounts vividly. While working with Ward Machinery in the late 1990s, he was interviewing independent box plant owners to better understand their operations. Sitting across from Marvin Grossbard, Bacot heard a die cutter stop mid-conversation. Grossbard told him to pause. After about a minute of silence, the machine started again. “Every thump you didn’t hear,” Grossbard told him, “we lost five cents.”

The insight wasn’t about speed alone. It was about the cost of lost opportunity. That understanding of independent operations would later shape Bacot’s leadership at the Association of Independent Corrugated Converters (AICC), where he served as Vice President of Operations beginning in 2007. Working directly with independent converters across the country, Bacot focused on the practical realities of plant economics, sales strategy, and long-term planning—helping operators connect investment decisions to day-to-day performance.

Through AICC, Bacot also became deeply involved in education and mentorship, leading seminars on cost justification and customer-centric selling. Those efforts reinforced what he had learned on the plant floor: independent owners know their businesses intimately, and earning their trust requires listening first and understanding what success looks like from their perspective.

Bacot credits much of his professional growth during this period to mentors who helped shape his thinking and approach. Among them was Steve Young, with whom Bacot shared countless conversations about leadership, integrity, and responsibility in a close-knit industry. He also points to the Harrisons, longtime industry figures whose guidance reinforced the importance of stewardship, service, and giving back.

That background made Bacot a natural fit when MHIA began looking to expand its presence in the independent market, particularly in the Northeast. The company needed someone who understood not just the technology, but the mindset of independent owners.

Paul Aliprando recognized that fit and recruited Bacot to MHIA in 2016. Aliprando understood that selling EVOLs into the independent market required more than product knowledge—it required credibility with owners who lived and breathed their operations. Bacot’s experience at Ward and HyCorr, his time with Sonoco, and his leadership at AICC all aligned directly with that mission. At MHIA, Bacot helped secure early independent EVOL installations, including the landmark Rand Whitney project that opened doors across the region. From there, interest spread. “That’s why Paul hired me,” Bacot said. “He knew I understood that market.”

Those early successes proved instrumental. They validated the approach and demonstrated that MHIA’s technology and philosophy could resonate beyond integrated operations. Bacot’s credibility didn’t come from sales pitches. It came from asking the right questions. Questions even customers hadn’t thought to ask yet. He was never content to talk about headline speed or capability alone. Instead, he focused on integration: what machine was being removed, how the new equipment would fit within an existing layout, what infrastructure changes were required, and how operators would live with the machine day to day.

“That’s where a lot of sales people miss it,” he added. “They talk about speed and features, but not installation, integration, and operation. Customers buy peace of mind. Our job is to make their future happen.”

As leadership transitions followed, Bacot developed a close working relationship with Yasushi Kitahara, whose arrival brought continuity and confidence during a period of change. Bacot credits that relationship with reinforcing MHIA’s long-term commitment to the North American market and to customer trust. “He told me everything would be okay, and it was,” Bacot said.

Over the course of his career, Bacot watched the industry transform repeatedly. He was there when personal computers entered plants, when wrench-driven adjustments gave way to monitors and automation, when lead edge feeders revolutionized safety and feeding speed, and when output jumped from 10,000 boxes per hour to 30,000. He saw design departments move from exacto knives to digital tables capable of producing samples in minutes. Through it all, one thing never changed: the need to make boxes faster, more reliably, and with less waste.

Yet for all the technological change, Bacot believes the heart of corrugated remains its people. He points to independent families and multi-generation operators for whom the plant is an extension of home. “Everything about the plant, including employees, is part of the family,” he said. That reality shaped how he approached leadership and mentorship, favoring reliability, curiosity, and respect over hierarchy.

Asked how he hopes to be remembered by his peers, Bacot doesn’t reach for grand statements. “I hope they will say I’m a great guy and I did a good job,” he said with a laugh. “That I was reliable and always good for an idea.” It’s an understated summary, but one echoed by colleagues across the industry who came to rely on his steady presence and thoughtful counsel.

As he steps into retirement on March 31, just two days after his 10-year anniversary with MHIA, Bacot is looking forward to something simple: “freedom from obligation. Unless it’s tee time,” he joked. His license plate reads “GOLF NUT,” and he intends to live up to it. Still, he doesn’t plan to disappear. Writing, teaching, and occasional consulting remain possibilities.

Bacot’s guidance to the next generation is straightforward: ask better questions, understand the full picture, and think beyond today’s needs. “My goal has always been simple: make the future happen,” Bacot said. “When decisions are made with that perspective, progress follows.”