The flexographic industry lost one of its early trailblazers with the passing of Joe Cotton in June of last year at the age of 93. Cotton, who was inducted into the FTA Hall of Fame in 1984, was no stranger to the Association, serving on committees, its board and overseeing updates to the third edition of Flexography: Principles & Practices.
Born in Dover, OH on April 29, 1926, Cotton enlisted in the US Navy after high school, serving in World War II. Soon after enlisting he married Florence Shirley Harris, and they had four children.
Cotton received his B.S. in fine art education from Kent State University in 1949, and his M.A. in printing from Ohio State University in 1955. While working toward his M.A., he taught fine arts in the Ohio public school system. In the summer of 1955, he began working at Great Plains Bag Corp, which was a subsidiary of Stone Container Corp. After the death of his first wife, Cotton married Patricia Ann McCain in 1979. They moved to Florida and Cotton worked at Stone Container until his retirement.
Throughout the years, Cotton held various FTA positions. He was elected to serve on the FTA Board of Directors in 1977 and was elected to the office of secretary that same year, vice president in 1980 and president in 1981. He served as FTA Board of Directors chairman from 1987 to 1988.
In 1978, Cotton was appointed chairman of the FTA Textbook Committee and was instrumental in overseeing the rewriting and reorganization of the third edition of Flexography: Principles & Practices. He coordinated the flow of editorial material and artwork, and the project was successfully completed in February 1981. Under Cotton’s direction, the number of illustrations was increased from 175 in the previous edition to 300, with captions added to facilitate comprehension. In addition, two chapters were more than doubled in size, three new chapters were added, and certain subjects (design, production art, mounting and proofing, and pressroom practices) that previously shared respective chapters were addressed as individual subjects in separate chapters.
As one of the original FTA members who was part of the “Doug Tuttle era” that supported the establishment of a Flexographic Technical Association, Cotton was the “George Washington” of his time, according to fellow Hall of Famer Tony Bart. Bart pointed out that Cotton, along with others, believed enough that the flexographic printing process would some day be able to compete with other already established printing processes.
“He gave of his time, energy and knowledge to the newly formed FTA,” said Bart. “He shared his knowledge with younger members of the Association (including myself). He helped users of flexo technology to improve their quality and productivity.”
Bart added that today, the learnings from those early years about anilox rolls, plates, doctor blades, inks, substrates and the like are used without second thought. “Joe—Thanks from me personally and the generations of other flexographers who have benefited from your contributions.”
“Joe and I became fast friends even though his heyday was before my time,” said FTA President Mark Cisternino. “In our many conversations, he always shared with me how blessed he felt regarding his career in flexography and all the friends he made along the way. He was truly an FTA treasure.”
Cotton had 21 grandchildren, 44 great grandchildren and 4 great great grandchildren.
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