One of Connecticut’s most accomplished African-American business leaders will be honored today by a regional business group for his long and distinguished career.
The Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council will induct entrepreneur and philanthropist Carlton L. Highsmith into the GNEMSDC Hall of Fame today at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., at the group’s 2018 Business Conference & Expo.
In 1983, Highsmith founded Specialized Packaging Group in New Haven as a package design and engineering firm. Carlton grew SPG to become one of the largest manufacturers of paperboard packaging in North America, designing and producing packaging for some of the world’s largest consumer products companies including Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Colgate, Clorox and Unilever.
In 2009, SPG was recognized as the largest minority-owned firm in Connecticut, with annual revenues in excess of $180 million. The company ranked as high as No. 26 on Black Enterprise Magazine’s BE 100, an annual list of the largest and most successful black-owned businesses in the United States.
After nominally retiring in 2010, Highsmith merged SPG with PaperWorks Industries to form the third-largest, vertically integrated, recycled-paperboard packaging company in North America. Highsmith was a major funder of the Connecticut Center for Arts & Technology and has chaired its board since 2012. He is also a trustee of Quinnipiac University, the Yale New Haven Health System and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
“GNEMSDC established the Hall of Fame to recognize individuals who have advanced the goals of economic inclusion and minority business development, as well as to pay tribute to those who have contributed in meaningful ways to the social and economic advancement of their communities,” said Peter Hurst, the business group’s president and CEO. “Highsmith, our inaugural inductee, is an entrepreneur, servant leader and a role model for all, whether a minority business enterprise or an affiliate of a corporation. When the history of shrewd entrepreneurs guided by character and ethics is written, his life’s work will fill volumes.”
Incorporated in 1975 to provide increased procurement and business opportunities for minority-owned companies, the GNEMSDC is an affiliate of the National Minority Supplier Development Council.
