Jacques Perrault and the John S. Bates Gold Medal

PAPTAC (the Pulp and Paper Technical Association of Canada) was originally founded by Dr. John Seaman Bates in 1915 as the Technical Section of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association (CPPA).

At its 75^th annual meeting in Montreal in 1989, which Bates attended at the age of 100, PAPTAC created the John S. Bates gold medal and made him the first recipient, in recognition of his contributions to both the association and the industry.

Bates was born in Woodstock, Ontario in 1888. After a B.Sc. from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, he was the first Ph.D. graduate in chemical engineering at Columbia University, NY in 1914. He was then asked by the Canadian government to head up the newly created Forest Products Laboratories on the McGill University campus in Montreal. He went on to work at the pulp and paper company Price in 1919-21 and 1926-32, as well as Bathurst Company 1921-26, and was very involved with process improvement. Later, as a consultant, he helped set up pulp mills in Port Alberni, Nanaimo and Crofton in B.C. and Prince Albert in Saskatchewan.

Greg Hay (PAPTAC), Jacques Perreault, Luc Pelletier (Cascades)This year, the John S. Bates gold medal was awarded to Jacques Perrault. Like Bates, Jacques has had a long and eventful career working for many different paper companies over the years. In fact, they had similar roles at different times at the mill in Donnacona, Quebec. Bates helped start up Donnacona as a newsprint mill for Price in 1927, while Perrault helped convert it to a supercalendered (SC) papers mill in 2000 for Alliance Forest Products.

After a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1976 including a one-year internship at the Institute of Chemical Engineering in Toulouse, France, Jacques spent the first few years of his career at CIP Research in Hawkesbury, where he soon began to specialize in finding solutions to the quality and operational problems of paper machines.

In the early 1980s, Jacques joined Black Clawson–Kennedy to support sales and engineering for the Top Flyte hybrid former. At that time, printing presses were demanding newsprint with uniform properties on both sides of the sheet, which was not possible with conventional Fourdrinier machines. The addition of a top wire to achieve the necessary surface quality became mandatory to retain offset printing customers. Dominion had already introduced the Dynaformer and Beloit the BelBond and BelForm, and when Black Clawson introduced its own version, the Top Flyte, they sold rapidly: over 25 units were installed over the next few years. Jacques participated in many pre- and post-conversion machine evaluations and several start-ups, and enjoyed learning about paper machine operation first-hand.

In 1987, Jacques joined the Papermaking Group at the Domtar Research Centre in Senneville, QC, and eventually became Manager, Papermaking, leading a team responsible for product development work and process optimization. During that time there was a surge in investments and modernizations of paper machines, including the new fine paper mill in Windsor, QC featuring two BelBaie III formers. One of Jacques’ proudest achievements was working out how to prevent curl of the Windsor sheet in a copy machine, a key property required for Xerox certification of the paper. It was the first machine of this type in North America to be qualified to Xerox standards.

When Domtar divested its newsprint assets to form Alliance Forest Products, Jacques became Technical Manager, Papermaking at Alliance, providing the expertise needed to carry out the company's paper machinery projects. Two major projects were carried out: Dolbeau PM5 (SC-C and SC-B, start-up 1997) and Donnacona PM4 (SC-B and SC-A, start-up 2000).

In delving into a problem that printing presses using the SC sheet experienced, called “fluting” – an out-of-plane waviness of paper that occurred in heatset offset printing, for which there was no rapid quantification technique, Jacques designed and patented a measuring device that is now sold by Voith. The ultimate solution to this problem was to install a remoisturizing system on the machine, since it was related to variability in local moisture content in the sheet.

When Alliance was acquired by Bowater in the 2000s, Jacques participated in two projects to modernize wet ends of paper machines, on Coosa Pines PM1 (top former) and Dolbeau PM2 (headbox). After carrying out consulting assignments for Hydro-Québec and Humeng International in 2008, Jacques joined Cascades from 2009 to 2023, where he was involved in the startup and optimization of the Greenpac board machine in Niagara Falls, NY, among other projects. His last big project was the conversion of the Bear Island, VA mill from newsprint to board. The project was delayed by various factors, including the Covid pandemic, but Jacques vowed to continue working on the project until the day he could push the button threading the tail to the reel. He achieved this on May 1^st, 2023 and retired from active duty the next day.

Jacques has enjoyed working with paper mill employees to solve problems, sharing his knowledge, and providing mentorship. He has also been a very active member of Paptac over the years, teaching courses, chairing committees, serving on its Executive Committee, updating Paptac data sheets and giving technical presentations at Paptac conferences. Paptac also awarded Jacques with the C. Howard Smith (1982) and Jasper Mardon Memorial (2019) Awards.

Learn more about Jacques Perrault and his receipt of the John S. Bates Award at PaperWeek 2025.

Martin Fairbank, Ph.D. Martin Fairbank has worked in the forest products industry for over 35 years, including many years for a pulp and paper producer and two years with Natural Resources Canada. With a Ph.D. in chemistry and experience in process improvement, product development, energy management and lean manufacturing, Martin currently works as an independent consultant, based in Montreal. He has also published Resolute Roots, a history of Resolute Forest Products and its predecessors over 200 years. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.