BUSINESS EXPO '96 KICKS OFF IN CAPE

Mildenberger & Willing Packaging U.S. Inc. is adding new customers for its colorful plastic packaging.

M&W, which opened in a seven-building, 130,000-square-foot complex off Highway 177 near the Procter & Gamble Paper Products plant in 1990, started out with about 80 workers and now employs more than 200.

M&W officials are manning a booth at Business Expo '96, which opened Tuesday at the Show Me Center and continues today.

Initially, P&G was the only U.S. customer of M&W, but over the past few years additional customers have been added.

A year ago the company acquired Saueressig U.S., which provided engraved cylinders for the M&W rotogravure presses. Saueressig became a wholly-owned subsidiary of M&W. Saueressig Engineering, which was headquartered in Vreden, Germany, had opened a branch facility at the M&W site in 1990.

M&W is one of almost 100 Cape Girardeau-area companies with booths for the two-day extravaganza.

Business Expo '96, sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce's Public Relations Committee, is being held in conjunction with the annual Business Conference sponsored by the chamber's University Relations Committee and the Harrison College of Business at Southeast Missouri State University.

Cost of admission to the Expo, which opens at 9 a.m., is $2.50.

The Business Conference will begin today with registration at 7 a.m. A Business Conference breakfast will be served from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., with a program, "Effective Use of Your Advertising Dollar," to be presented from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. Cost of attending the Business Conference and breakfast is $40.

John Gorby, president of Douglas Britt Co., a Chicago-area management-consulting firm, will present the three-hour conference from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m.

During the session various means of advertising -- newspaper, radio and television -- will be discussed.

Gorby has developed and presented sales, management and personal-development programs throughout North America. He previously served as a marketing executive with P&G, and as vice president of Curtis Communications Group. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and holds bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration.