Frederick N. Biesecker
Drug Plastics and Glass Company
Inducted 2014
Fred Biesecker (1938 – 2012) was best known for his Entrepreneurial Spirit, Mergers & Acquisition, Niche Marketing, and Product Strategy. These are words usually found in a modern business school syllabus today, not in 1963 when Fred Biesecker began a 50-year journey that began with a small sole proprietorship selling plastic and prescription plastic and glass containers. He did this working in partnership with his wife, Suzanne Kohler Biesecker.
He had always wanted to own his own business, so in 1963, in the basement of their home in Boyertown, Pa., Fred and Suzanne established Drug Plastics and Glass Company, with the intention of becoming an early supplier of plastic prescription ware vials to drugstores. He guided the company with a mix of vision, innovation, leadership and sound business practices. He was known simply as “Mr. B” within the company, and he cared deeply for his extended “DPG Family.” Under his direction, Drug Plastics has since grown from the original factory in Boyertown, Pa., to include a mold manufacturing company and eight factories across the United States. The little company in the basement of their home became a major supplier of plastic bottles and child-resistant safety caps to pharmaceutical companies around the world.
He received his business lessons in the real world, and through determination and hard work he built a nearly $200 million dollar business that became one of the major suppliers of plastic bottles and closures to the worldwide pharmaceutical industry. Employing over 800 people in eight manufacturing plants, Fred and his wife instituted a corporate culture, that became known as the “Drug Plastics Way”:
Mr. Biesecker was a member of the board of trustees of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a past member of the boards of Jocelyn Diabetes Center in Boston, Mass., Hamilton Bank of Reading and Kutztown University. He was a member of the Society of Plastics Engineers, Council on Plastic Packaging and the Environment, American Diabetes Association and the Children’s Circle of Care Society. He founded the Fred and Suzanne Biesecker Pediatric Liver Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and later established a Chair in Biliary Atresia. He received the Achievement Award by the Society of Plastics Engineers, and was honored as an Alumni Fellow by Penn State University. He also supported many local charities and organizations, including the Biesecker Children’s Library in Boyertown.
Areas of Expertise:
Plastics packaging, Plastics management
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