Rick Willett Resigns as NewPage President/CEO

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NewPage Corp., Miamisburg, Ohio, USA, this week announced that Richard D. Willett, Jr., president and CEO, has resigned from NewPage effective January 18, and will remain with the company as a consultant through March 31. Mark A. Suwyn, former CEO and currently executive chairman, has been elected to serve as CEO until a new CEO is named.

"After considerable personal reflection on my longer term career interests, I have made the difficult decision to leave NewPage to pursue opportunities in other industries," stated Willett. "A smooth transition is important to me, and I have agreed to assist Mark Suwyn and the NewPage management team as needed as a consultant to the company, and then further through a two-year consulting arrangement with Cerberus Operations."

Suwyn said that "while there is never a perfect time for a transition, Rick and I, along with the board of directors, have mutually agreed on this timing and feel that NewPage is well positioned for the future now that the acquisition of Stora Enso North America has been successfully integrated. Rick has made enormous contributions to NewPage over the past four years and we all wish him well in the future."

NewPage is the largest coated paper manufacturer in North America, based on production capacity, with $4.4 billion in net sales for the year ended December 31, 2008. The company's product portfolio is the broadest in North America and includes coated freesheet, coated groundwood, supercalendered, newsprint and specialty papers. NewPage owns paper mills in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nova Scotia, Canada, with a total annual production capacity of approximately 4.4 million tons of paper, including 3.2 million tons of coated paper, 1.0 million tons of uncoated paper, and 200,000 tons of specialty paper.