Gordon B. Lankton
Nypro Products Corporation
Inducted 2000
Gordon Lankton (1932 – 2021) was an example of a true American business success story, building one of the largest international plastics manufacturing companies from a small start-up company. He purchased 50% of the then relatively modest Nypro Products Corporation with borrowed funds in 1962. At that time, the company had sales of $600,000. Seven years later, he purchased the rest of the company and became its President and CEO.
In the years to follow, Nypro sales reached nearly a billion dollars, with a dozen plants in the United States and manufacturing facilities in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Ireland, Wales, Germany, Russia, China, India, and Singapore, along with newer plants in Mexico, Shanghai, and the Philippines. Shortly after joining Nypro, Gordon instituted an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP), and in 1998, sold most of his stock to the plan, enabling 500 employees to participate in ownership of the company. Gordon also founded the Nypro Institute in Clinton, Massachusetts, a plastics educational institute designed to train Nypro employees and employees from other corporations in plastics manufacturing (primarily injection molding) and plastics materials. The courses were taught both on-site and online.
Gordon was also a philanthropist. Besides donating his personal money, Gordon secured other corporate funding for the National Plastics Center and Museum and chaired the Museum’s Board of Directors. He was also named the International Business Person of the Year by the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI, now PLASTICS) and the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE).
After he retired from Nypro, Gordon founded the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts, which is thought to have the largest collection of Russian Icons outside of Russia.
Areas of Expertise: Plastic management, Plastics processing