An industry giant retires: after more than 40 years at Sun Chemical, Edward E. Barr to step down as chairman

Ink World, Dec, 2002 by David Savastano

To say that Edward E. Barr is a seminal figure in the printing ink industry is an understatement. When Mr. Barr joined Sun Chemical in 1962, the company had annual sales of $25 million in ink and pigments. In 2001, Sun Chemical's ink and pigment sales were $3.5 billion.

On Jan. 1, Mr. Barr will retire as chairman, Sun Chemical Group B.V. Mr. Barr said that he felt the time had come for the next generation of leaders, led by new chairman Wes Lucas, to fully take the helm of Sun Chemical.

"I am 66, and I believe that one of the important responsibilities of a CEO is to prepare for his succession," Mr. Barr said. "I've seen too many examples where it's been deleterious."

Mr. Barr had served as Sun Chemical's chairman, president and CEO for 11 years until 1997, when he transferred the titles of president and CEO to Henri Dyner. Mr. Dyner retired earlier this year.

"This process began five years ago when I transferred day-to-day responsibilities to Henri," Mr. Barr said. "We needed to have the company not identified 24/7 with Ed Barr. I felt that in terms of Sun activities this is the perfect time for me.

"I am indebted to Sun Chemical's men and women, past and present, throughout the world for their dedication and loyalty in building our company to its global leadership position," Mr. Barr added.

Mr. Barr said that Mr. Lucas is the right person to take over Sun Chemical. "I wouldn't be looking forward to new challenges if Wes wasn't such a strong person," he said.

Mr. Lucas said he is grateful for all that Mr. Barr has taught him during the past two years.

"I have enormous respect for Ed," said Mr. Lucas, who is also Sun Chemical's president and CEO. "He really is one of the truly great leaders in the industry. He has transformed the industry and created a great company in Sun Chemical. He's very intuitive, and what he has done here is truly remarkable."

The Ink Industry - Then and Now

In 1957, Mr. Barr graduated NYU's Stern School of Business, received his master of science degree in economics from the University of Michigan and participated in NYU's Ph.D. program in economics. By 1962, Mr. Barr could select any industry he wanted to join, and he chose the ink industry.

Mr. Barr began his career with Sun Chemical as assistant to the president, moving up to group vice president and executive vice president, until he was elected Sun Chemical's president and COO in 1975.

As soon as he joined Sun Chemical. Mr. Barr began to formulate and implement the ideas that would spur Sun's growth.

"When I came to this business it was basically a cottage industry," Mr. Barr said. "It was an important field, but it was not run by the business principles I had learned. It was substantially composed of family-owned companies. We saw there was an opportunity to be a change engine."

The first decision made by Mr. Barr was to focus the company's energies on its core ink and pigment segments. Mr. Barr's first responsibility was to divest non-core businesses from Sun Chemical. Next, the company began to focus on creating new and improved technologies, hiring Dan Carlick from Interchemical to develop the company's increasing R&D resources, build state-of-the-art technical centers and change the way large batches of ink was made.

"When Dan Carlick came to Sun, we became the first ink company to concentrate on scientific fundamentals," Mr. Barr said. "We also recognized that the then-current manufacturing technology was also the product of this cottage industry, so we pioneered motherplants to rethink how we made printing ink. Graphic arts was a growth industry, which played to our developing management teams, motherplants, technical centers, things that were happening in other industries, but not in ink."

The company's successful expansion into Europe would follow. Sun Chemical grew from $20 million in sales in Europe in 1974 to $1.5 billion last year. Other regions experienced similar growth.

Not everything about the ink industry needed to be changed, however. The importance of relationships has remained a constant.

"The industry was not very professionally run, but it had very special relationships with its customers. There was a lot of close contact," Mr. Barr said. "We developed relationships based on trust and agreement on objectives."

Mr. Barr left the company in 1982 to become CEO and partner with Courtaulds plc in an American-based specialty chemicals joint venture. He rejoined Sun Chemical as its president and CEO following the company's reorganization at the beginning of 1987.

"I was very happy at Courtaulds, but when the opportunity came up, I came back in a heartbeat," Mr. Barr said.

The acquisition of Sun Chemical by Dainippon Ink & Chemicals (DIC) soon followed. Mr. Barr was named a member of the board of directors of DIC from 1988 to 2002, where he was the only non-Japanese member of the DIC board.

Mr. Barr said the relationship with DIC has been excellent, and that he learned much from his experiences with DIC.

"We are all prisoners of our background," Mr. Barr said. "One of the great things about capitalism in North America and Europe is that you have to create all the time for your business. Things are more formal in Japan. I would say that Sun Chemical's experience would have been impossible in Japan -- it's not as openly dynamic as our markets have been. When I started in the business, the leading ink companies in Japan were DIC and Toyo, and that has not changed in the past 41 years. When I came to Sun, the two leading U.S. companies were Interchemical and Sinclair & Valentine, who are long gone. We let the best rise to the top."