Earl Shapiro, 68, founder of disposable dinnerware firm best known for its Sweetheart Cup brand
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Earl Shapiro, founder of disposable dinnerware firm, dies at 68
Served as chairman of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago and donated
$10 million to U. of C. lab schools
By Trevor Jensen | Tribune reporter
May 28, 2008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/chi-hed-shapiro-28-may28,0,6590648.story
Earl Shapiro was faced with the grocery shopper's predicament—paper or
plastic?—when he started Prairie Packaging in 1986.
Mr. Shapiro opted for plastic, a wise choice given coming trends in
disposable dinnerware, and built a company that claimed $500 million in
annual sales when it was sold to Pactiv Corp. in 2007.
Scion of the family that started Sweetheart Cup and benefactor to many
Chicago cultural and educational institutions, Mr. Shapiro, 68, died
Monday, May 26, following a brief illness, while returning to Chicago
from Michigan, said his wife, Brenda. He was a longtime Hyde Park resident.
Mr. Shapiro was the grandson of a Russian immigrant who, with three
brothers, started making ice-cream cones in 1911. The company became
Maryland Cup, a major manufacturer of paper and plastic cups, straws,
plates and other products best known for its Sweetheart Cup brand.
He grew up in Chicago and graduated from Lake Forest Academy and
Princeton before getting a law degree from Yale Law School in 1964, his
wife said. He reveled in the challenge of the law and set out on a
career in the field
"Law school was for Earl the best intellectual and academic experience
of his life," his wife said. He was a clerk with a federal judge and
then joined the New York firm now known as Hughes Hubbard & Reed.
While in New York, Mr. Shapiro was part of a corporation set up to
rehabilitate the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
The family business, however, was looking to its next generation of
leadership. Mr. Shapiro's father, Henry, came to New York to have a talk
with his son about joining the company.
In 1967, Mr. Shapiro returned to Chicago to go to work for Maryland Cup,
becoming president of its Midwestern division and handling significant
clients including McDonald's before the company's sale in 1983 to Ft.
Howard Corp.
"Business was his metier," and he never looked back on his decision to
forgo a career in law, his wife said.
A few years after the sale, Mr. Shapiro was encouraged to start his own
disposable dinnerware company by Roger Stone, former CEO of Stone
Container who became a lead investor in Prairie Packaging. "I knew Earl
as an extraordinarily bright and insightful guy who really wanted to do
something on his own," Stone said.
While the company endured the occasional hiccup typical of a start-up,
Mr. Shapiro's early decision to concentrate on plastics rather than
paper products represented the kind of forward thinking that paved the
way to success, Stone said.
Mr. Shapiro's sons, Matthew and Benjamin, became involved with the
business, and sales grew to $100 million by 1999, then quintupled over
the next eight years.
"Going out on his own was wonderful, it changed his life," his wife said.
Mr. Shapiro became chairman of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago in
2005, instituting fundraising efforts and changes that brought the
organization out of the red, said CEO Bob Howard.
Earlier this year, Mr. Shapiro and his family gave $10 million to the
University of Chicago's Laboratory Schools, the largest single gift in
the school's 102-year history. He and his wife also endowed a gallery
which will bear their name in the new modern art wing of the Art
Institute of Chicago.
In addition to his wife and sons, Mr. Shapiro is survived by a daughter,
Alexandra Aron; a brother, James; and two grandchildren.
Services are set for 11 a.m. Thursday in Temple Anshe Emet, 3751 N.
Broadway, Chicago.
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