CAN BE Executive Director Jack St. Pierre

CAN BE Executive Director Jack St. Pierre spent 36 years in the plastics industry in a variety of management capacities in both manufacturing and sales. He also led sales for an early-stage manufacturer and a start-up company.

In 1983, St. Pierre founded a new plastic bottle company in Somerville, N.J., for Wedco Technologies (now Tri-Delta Technologies). In 1985, with the assistance of CAN DO, Inc., he founded Pocono P.E.T. Inc. in Hazleton to manufacture clear polyester packaging for retail, club store and institutional food products. St. Pierre served as president and CEO of the company, which grew from 15 to 85 employees. The company was sold in 1998 and operates today as Pretium Packaging in the original Humboldt Industrial Park building, which has been expanded three times over the past 23 years to its current 123,000 square feet.

Due to St. Pierre’s entrepreneurial skills and knowledge, CAN DO coaxed him out of retirement in 2006 to take over CAN BE, its new business incubator program. As executive director, St. Pierre oversees the CAN BE program and provides extensive business guidance to the companies growing in the incubator.

In September 2009, St. Pierre became CEO for Advanced-Tec Materials LLC, a pre-start-up technology-based company that has discovered and developed viable commercial uses for byproducts of the waste generated from coal combustion in energy-producing plants.

He serves on the boards of P.E.T. Realty Co., The Laurels Senior Living Community, Corporate Buyers Guide, the Greater Hazleton Civic Partnership, the Great Valley Technology Alliance, Advanced-Tec Materials and the Castle Auditorium Fund. Previously, he served on the boards of Legacy Bank, the Second Mile (NEPA chapter) and Hazleton General Hospital.

St. Pierre did his undergraduate work at Lowell Technological Institute and Gannon College and holds an MBA certification from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University.