Our Mills
A Legacy of Integrity
With roots in South India, Mathew Chakola, the founder and President of the Maryland Paper Company Mill Group, grew up in a family-owned and operated manufacturing business. The tools he acquired through his involvement in the family business coupled with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering, enabled him to grow and cultivate a national company. In 1989, he broke ground in Williamsport, Maryland with passion and excitement to bring a low cost, high quality, dry felt paper to the market. He traveled the country and visited the salvage yards and closed paper mills to collect the parts he needed to put together his first machine.
That machine, which started production 1989 is still running today, and paved the way for four additional machines that run simultaneously throughout the country. The large demand for roofing dry felt, facers for the PolyISO market and building papers spurred the expansion into these other geographic markets. Over the past 30 years, his facilities have produced a wide variety of complimentary products to the ever-evolving building paper industry.
The three facilities combined, Maryland Paper Company, Alabama Paper Products, and California Paper Products, are known as the industry’s largest producers of Dry Felt and Facer in North America. Today, with the help of his son David, Mathew continues to innovate and create top quality paper while staying true to our environmental responsibilities of leaving the earth better than we found it.
Sustainable Ever Since
Maryland Paper Company (Alabama Paper Products & California Paper Products), has been a market leader in the manufacture of sustainable roofing products and building materials at their three facilities across the United States since the late 1980s.
By matching responsible resource management and carbon efficiency as a driving principle during their design, the mills were stand-alone leaders within the industry as they were one of the pioneers in the 100% fully closed-loop paper manufacturing process. Not only do they reuse 100% of processed water, instead of pulling it from natural resources, but they consume approximately 350,000 tons of wastepaper and cardboard each year – historically diverting it from landfills.
Enter the Bear
Golden Bear Recycling was the natural fit to handle all the procurement needs for our affiliated mills. However, our goal was not only to supply our mills with the tons of waste paper they required – our goal from the beginning, that still remains today, is to provide those same world class commodity trading, procurement, and recycling services that our global customers have come to know and trust.
Today we supply recycled fiber from the bulk grades to high grades to almost every large and middle market integrated and independent manufacturer in North America – a testament that our team is rooted in partnership, integrity, unity, expertise and innovation.
Our Zero-Waste Future Has Begun
As leaders in sustainability, California Paper Products located in Shafter, CA is in the process of becoming the first TRUE certified zero-waste paper mill in the world by the United States Green Building Council.