Dickinsonians with a flair for the fun side of fashion are the focus
of our cover feature for summer. You’ll
encounter designers Sophie Simmons ’94 and Kate
Duvall ’04, company
co-owner Scott Beaumont ’75,
marketing professionals Jeff Funk ’91 and Marisa Jacobs ’78, boutique
co-owner Debbie Dickson ’82,
and photographer Doug Inglish ’91
and get a peek at how the presidential style of William G. Durden ’71
evolved.
Desperately Seeking Shimmer
Jeff Funk ’91 helps keep fine personal-care products on the top
shelf
By David McKay Wilson
To excel at sales, Jeff Funk ’91 has learned
that you need a product you believe in, a good team behind you and the gift of gab in
more than one language.
That gift has brought Funk to Cebal Americas, where he’s
marketing manager for a global company that makes packaging for staples of the fashion-minded—cosmetics—as
well as personal-care and pharmaceutical products.
He had his introduction to marketing
at Dickinson in front of Old West, taking high-school students on campus tours. By his
senior year, Funk was going on road shows with the admissions team, providing a student’s
view of life in Carlisle and at its program in Toulouse, France.
“I was a little
nervous before that first tour, but it didn’t take long to
get my groove,” says Funk, 34, who lives in Ridgefield, Conn., with wife Kristen. “I
found it wasn’t hard to promote Dickinson and tell others why I loved it.”
Funk,
who majored in French and international studies, didn’t plan on a career
in marketing. He’d spent his junior year in Toulouse, was fluent in French and
was contemplating a career that involved working with people in other nations.
“Being
overseas opens your mind to how people are different, says Funk, who grew up in Doylestown,
Pa. “I never would have learned that if I’d stayed in Pennsylvania
my entire life.”
Catherine Beaudry, the associate professor of French who directed the Toulouse program
when Funk attended, recalls his upbeat approach toward life abroad.
“Adjectives
come to mind with Jeff—enthusiastic and smiling,” says
Beaudry.
Funk’s first job out of college was with an import-export company
in Philadelphia, where he handled the paperwork on shipments into the United States.
Funk’s love
of languages brought him to the University of Pennsylvania at night where he learned
German.
By 1994, he was back in Europe for a year, this time in Germany with the
Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft, an international business-exchange program that offered two
months of intensive language training, three months in German business school and six
months working for a German company.
Once the program was over, he became a sales representative
for Valois, a French company that manufactures pumps for perfume bottles. For five years,
he shuttled between the U.S. and Europe, attending sales meetings and working with clients
around the globe.
With Valois, for example, he worked with Victoria’s Secret on
the launch of the fragrance Pink, collaborating with the packaging engineer and cap manufacturer
to bring the product, packaged in a conical bottle, onto the market.
“It’s
fun being an integral part of a huge campaign like that,” Funk
says.
In 2001, Funk, working out of his Connecticut home, became a sales representative
at a German company, Klocke, which manufactures promotional samples for companies like
Crabtree and Evelyn and Burt’s Bees.
By 2003, Funk had joined Cebal Americas, a
leader in tube packaging, with manufacturing plants in the United States, Mexico, Canada
and Brazil. The company manufactures plastic and laminate tubes for toothpaste, shampoo
and hair gel. Last year Cebal launched a new toothpaste tube for Aquafresh that features
a coil of dental floss in the tube’s
cap.
This spring, he met with packaging engineers at Estée Lauder, looking
at developing new packaging for personal-care products.
“They want their packaging
to shimmer and give it a better shelf appearance,” he
says.
His job also entails taking American and foreign clients to his company’s
factories around the world to see where their tubes are made. These are tours not unlike
the days when he led Dickinson’s prospective students around campus.
“You
get to know your clients, and you have a good time with them,” says
Funk. “They are relying on you, and you have to build their trust.”
David McKay Wilson, a New York journalist, writes frequently for alumni magazines around
the country. |
