NEWS
Remembered as helping to modernize medical packaging in the 1970s, Francis (Frank) Faulseit passed away October 19, 2007. With Modern Packaging Inc. (Mt. Holly, NJ) and its subsequent owners during 1968–1997, Faulseit held various positions within the company and has been credited with contributing to its innovations and continuous growth. At one point, he served as president of Modern Packaging.
“Frank was a big help to me in understanding how Tyvek could play a role in medical packaging,” says George Scanlan, who once served as a product manager for DuPont Tyvek. “He was an expert on materials and knew how to combine them to achieve certain results.”
In the early 1970s, terminal sterilization was emerging, along with what Scanlan calls an “explosion” of new disposable devices. “Economically, it made sense to package devices and then sterilize them. Many devices had protuberances that could puncture paper; however, a porous material was still needed for EtO sterilization,” he says. “The old materials just wouldn’t work.”
Most grades of Tyvek at the time, however, had antistatic coatings, Scanlan says. “But the coatings attract moisture, which you don’t want in sterile packaging, and corona treatments at the time could create pinholes.”
Scanlan says that Faulseit encouraged DuPont to develop a medical-grade Tyvek that utilized bonded polyethylene without corona treating. He says Faulseit also pointed out the need for Tyvek to peel cleanly without fiber tear. “He helped us understand what we needed to do better to make Tyvek work for medical device packaging,” Scanlan adds.
Faulseit also helped Modern Packaging develop its peelable chevron pouch. According to Ron Nowacki, sales consultant for Amcor Flexibles, who worked closely with him for years, Faulseit drew his design on a paper napkin during dinner with John and Harry Denworth, owners of Modern Packaging at the time. Initial pouches created at Modern Packaging used a polyethylene-coated paper sealed to uncoated paper. These pouches were then loaded with syringes and EtO sterilized, and they were peelable for a sterile presentation of the syringe.
Faulseit was reportedly a mentor to many medical device packaging engineers, reports Scanlan. “Packaging engineers made sterile device presentation possible,” he says. “Frank had ideas for laminating and coating materials in order to accomplish packaging engineers’ objectives.”
Faulseit was always “interested in improving the industry,” recounts William Daly, former president of Beacon Converters Inc. (Saddle Brook, NJ). “I knew Frank for more years than I can remember, part of the time as an employee, more of the time as a supplier and as a competitor, but all of the time as a reliable and trustworthy man. Frank was open-minded and friendly to all.”
Faulseit also worked in sales during the DRG and Rexam ownership of the Mt. Holly facility, before retiring in 1997. (Modern Packaging is now Amcor Flexibles.)
Prior to joining Modern Packaging, Faulseit was a packaging engineer at Becton Dickinson, where he held two medical device patents.
According to an obituary published in the Herald Tribune, Francis C. Faulseit Sr. is survived by his wife of 54 years, Agatha “Tina,” whom he reportedly met while working at Becton Dickinson, and a large family of siblings, children, and grandchildren.
