1998 C. Taylor Kew Leadership Award

The younger Frain says a regular business habit his father practiced was to frequently take customers golfing. "Things were different back then. He was good at entertaining [to build relationships] and his customers expected it."

Industry Beginnings

After Frain served as a pilot in WWII, he returned to Pennsylvania and in the early '50s began working at Downingtown Paperbox Co., a folding carton company. In the course of 10 years there he was promoted to sales manager, then general manager. But his big break in the box industry came in 1968 when the company was sold. It was at that point that he had the opportunity to buy Pottstown Paperbox. Five years later he parlayed that successful venture into a second when he acquired Westchester Paperbox and subsequently consolidated the two to form Unipak, a set-up box converter that today has 50 employees and is headed by his son, Ted Frain III, himself a second-generation NPA board chairman.