Domtar names new Sanford mill general manager, John Graves

Domtar has put John Graves in charge of its Sanford mill, a 79-employee plant with nearly $105 million in local economic impact. The move puts a veteran paper executive at the controls of one of North America’s few fully integrated tissue manufacturers, a site whose performance matters to Sanford, Seminole County and the contractors and families tied to the plant.

Graves became general manager of the Sanford mill effective June 1. Domtar says he will oversee the mill’s tissue and converting assets, a job that carries weight in a facility that sits inside the company’s broader tissue business and helps anchor industrial employment in the area.

His background stretches more than 30 years in pulp and paper, including nearly two decades at Domtar’s Coosa Pines operation in Alabama. Graves has held jobs as operations manager, technical services manager, an operational vice president at Twin Rivers Papers and, most recently, reliability manager at Coosa Pines. He also holds bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and pulp and paper science, along with a master’s degree in pulp and paper science and technology from North Carolina State University.

Domtar vice president John Opiela said Graves brings a combination of technical expertise and leadership that fits the Sanford mill as the company continues to invest in its tissue business. That emphasis on investment will be closely watched in Sanford, where a leadership change at a major manufacturing site can affect production planning, hiring decisions and the pace of capital spending.

The Sanford plant is not a stand-alone outpost. Domtar says the Sanford and Hialeah tissue facilities in Florida have 62,000 short tons of annual production capacity across three tissue machines and eight converting lines. Domtar describes Sanford as one of the few fully integrated tissue manufacturers in North America, producing a range of bath and towel products for at-home and away-from-home markets.

The company also points to operating and environmental benchmarks that matter locally. Domtar says Sanford employees finished 2024 with 750,000 consecutive injury-free hours. It says the Florida tissue mills participate in SolarTogether, a shared solar program projected to reduce annual greenhouse-gas emissions by about 8,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Domtar says it has about 14,000 employees across North America, more than 60 locations and products marketed in more than 90 countries. The company was acquired by Paper Excellence in 2021 and the Paper Excellence group rebranded under the Domtar name in 2024, underscoring that a Sanford personnel change is part of a much larger corporate structure. For Seminole County, the real question is how that structure translates into steady work, investment and long-term stability at one of the county’s most important industrial sites.