Reynolds Welcomes Justin Mehaffy

The Reynolds Company is pleased to welcome Justin Mehaffy as Technical Director. Justin’s career spans over two decades in product innovation, business development, and operational excellence. He brings a wealth of experience driving growth and efficiency across industrial coatings, adhesives, and manufacturing processes to Reynolds.

Justin started his career as a packaging adhesive development chemist at National Starch & Chemical in Bridgewater, NJ. At National, he earned over 12 patents in thermoplastic hot melt adhesives and application processes. Over the course of his 20-year career at National, which was acquired by Henkel in 2008, Justin led development teams in packaging, nonwovens, bottle labeling, and customer process solutions that were focused on Lean Six Sigma that enabled field technical service; he also led cross-functional global innovation programs as a business development leader including Cool-Lok, Easy-Pac, and Contour Shrink film labeling. He helped build application labs in Bridgewater, NJ, and Boucherville, Canada, which were dedicated to improving the predictability of new product launches, driving Henkel’s first-time right trial success.

Justin left Henkel in 2016 to explore new horizons with former National Starch and chemical peers supporting M&A in the industrial polyurea coatings sector. This experience led him to Join Axalta Coatings (formerly Dupont Performance Coatings), where he was hired to build an industrial coating technology footprint (Dupont had focused on automotive coatings and did not have a technical infrastructure to support Industrial segments). He helped establish an industrial development team in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. He was a technical lead on five industrial acquisitions at nine sites, integrating the technical teams and product platforms into a customer-focused, cohesive technical organization. In 2023, Justin was asked to help reinvigorate the operational footprint at Axalta and drive operational excellence across 24 global Industrial manufacturing sites as the director of global capital engineering and productivity.

His expertise in product lifecycle management, strategic planning, and customer-driven innovation will be instrumental in advancing The Reynolds Company’s vision.

Justin holds a master’s in chemical engineering from Clarkson University and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. He relocated to Greenville, SC, from Michigan with his wife Shawna. They have three grown children who live in Michigan. Justin and Shawna enjoy hiking and spending time outdoors and are excited to join the Greenville community and the Reynolds family.