Joseph Weber, Jr., of Weber Packaging, Arlington Heights, Illinois, passed away on October 17, 2022. Weber, Jr. saw the potential of the company founded by his father and spent his life building th labeling company.
His vision, business acumen, and genuine concern for his employees helped him to modernize the packaging industry with new ideas, including color pressure sensitive labels, computer-based labeling and automated labeling systems.
Joseph Weber , Jr., was born in Chicago on August 21, 1932, the year his father founded the Weber Addressing Machine company. He grew up in Prospect Heights and graduated from Arlington Heights High School. Weber then went on to attend Drake University where he graduated with a B.A. Degree. After that, Weber went on to pursue a degree in law from Northwestern University Law and graduated in 1954.
After passing the bar exam, Weber practiced law for two years defending personal injury and workman’s compensation cases for insurance companies. After those years of civil defense work, Weber joined the Cook County State’s Attorney where he worked for three years.
In 1962 he left the practice of law and joined the Weber Addressing Machine Company, located in Mount Prospect, Illinois. At the time the company had 50 employees but Weber saw a great future for the company. Weber helped plan the expansion of the company which moved to a new building in Arlington Heights in 1967.
In 1980, Weber was named President and CEO of the company, now named Weber Marking Systems. Under his leadership the company received many awards, including being named one of the top 10 manufacturing companies in the country. He guided the company forward as it modernized the packaging industry with new methods for labeling products. Today, Weber is still a family-owned global company that employs more than 1,000 people throughout the world at numerous manufacturing and sales locations in North America, Central America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
