Fulfilling Career in Paper Science Prompts Alumna to Give Others a Chance

One might say Sally Sutton Williard ’84 has paper in her blood. As a child, she grew up with two parents who worked for a paper mill. She earned a degree in pulp and paper technology from the College of Natural Resources, then made a career out of paper innovations. 

Now a retiree, Williard innovates her own paper for the handmade cards she creates — and, in 2023, she established the Sally Sutton Williard Paper Science and Engineering Scholarship for future paper science and engineering students.

Paper Science Encompasses Untold Opportunities

Williard’s parents didn’t push their daughter toward paper. In fact, when it came time for college, she didn’t know what she wanted to do.

“My parents wanted me to get any degree that would help me pursue a career I enjoyed,” she said. “I was good at math and science but also English, which was my favorite.”

She pored over the majors available at NC State. 

“English had the lowest salaries and placements. Pulp and paper had the highest. I decided that if I was going to college, I was going to be able to find a good job when I got out. I could always do English for pleasure.”

Williard has never regretted her decision. 

“Pulp and paper is an excellent major. It’s a very versatile degree for moving into other industries and working through challenges in life,” she said. “Many of my greatest achievements have come from the skills I obtained in my pulp and paper classes to develop new, more efficient processes.”

After a college internship at a paper mill in the state and then full-time jobs at mills in Georgia and Virginia after graduation, Williard got a call from one of the largest tobacco companies in the country, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.

“R.J. Reynolds was experimenting with paper types to develop a cigarette that eventually was the first commercial heated tobacco product. They hired me because I could ‘speak paper,’” Williard said. “I acted as liaison between manufacturing, research and development, and paper companies.” 

She added, “At one point, my job was to help develop cigarette paper that would extinguish more quickly than standard cigarettes. I worked with a number of fire marshals to explain our technology, and I hold patents for some of the papers I co-developed.”

Williard consulted with companies around the country and across the globe on creative ways to use paper for tobacco products. 

After a two-year stint leading an innovations group in Japan, Williard came home to a new world for the American tobacco industry. Congress had given regulatory power to the Department of Health and Human Services, resulting in new career opportunities to develop efficient, effective regulatory processes.

‘I Realized I Could Endow My Own Fund’

Today, Williard is a generous donor to the College of Natural Resources. 

“I’d started a donor-advised fund for charitable giving, but then I realized I could endow my own fund to provide opportunities for others. So I emailed the College of Natural Resources,” she said.

Conversations with Jennifer Piercy and Jennifer Viets in the college’s Advancement Office led to the creation of a scholarship in Williard’s name for paper science and engineering students — and an agreement for her to mentor a student this fall.

“This scholarship is a way to support folks who think they don’t have any opportunities. I’d encourage other alumni to find areas where they want to help, then seek the partners who will work with you to make that happen,” Williard said. 

She added, “College today isn’t the same as it was when we went to school. ‘The Jennifers,’ as I call them, clarify where the needs are.”

This article was written by Cindy Dashnaw Jackson for the College of Natural Resources.