Stewart Nelson

After graduation I went to school for engineering, worked at Pearson’s candy company and Duracell Inc in St Paul. In 1986 I moved to Palm Harbor Florida.
I have been working in the packaging machinery and automation industry for nearly 44 years. Worked for a couple of multinational packaging machine corporations based out of Germany.
Traveled to over 62 countries, most all of Europe, all of the eastern bloc countries, the Balkans, Russia, Central and South America, China and much of South East Asia.

I met my wife Ana on September 11, 2001 in Argentina, she is from Brazil. We married in 2003 she has one son Thiago who is married to Mariana and they live in Bogota Colombia. They have two girls, Valentina (4) and Antonella (3) months. Ana and I were blessed with one child, Nicholas who spent a short time with us and we really miss our little guy.

In 2009 I started Fill-Tech Solutions inc which is a packaging machine manufacturer which produces high speed cup filling and sealing systems for the food, dairy, pharmaceutical & household consumer products industries.
If you eat something from a cup in the dairy section of your local grocery store, fresh soup such as Panera, use wipes, floor mop products, medications from bottles, it most likely came from one of our systems.

In 2022 I was awarded the distinguished alumni of the year award from Northwood Technical College based on my achievements in packaging industry. I was invited speak to the 2022 graduating class at their commencement ceremony.
I hold US patents for several filling techniques and a two part filling design with Campbells Soup.

On the personal side, we play tennis 3 times a week when I am in town, Love cooking gourmet food, enhancing our skills and perfecting various dishes from many different cultures. Most of all I / we just enjoy life, work hard and am happy to have our health.

Semi Retired now, still have my company, spending time now in our new home in Beaver Creek Colorado along with our place in Longboat Key FL.
Back at skiing, going twice a week now.

Have many good ones and so many memories. Really would not know where to start. There were so many good times with all the classmates from EP Rock. Our Sixth grade class won most of the track and field events hosted on the last day of school at Rock. We won the 440 relay against the teachers, Brad Anderson, Terry Wiegel, myself and Fred Windolff running the anchor of that race. At the conclusion of the day we went to the chalk board and said we won, and Mr Hickox just added the ! Point to that and that was the last day at EP Rock.

As we progressed from our neighborhood we met all the kids from from 4th Street and the surrounding areas when we all melded into JR High.
In High School we we met more piers as our city started to grow.

We all started to find our ways with our current friends, and meeting all new friends that would make a difference in our lives, building bonds and relationships into our high school years and beyond.

It was a lifetime ago, but the memories we can all cherish can certainly make it seem like yesterday. I can not believe we all are approaching our mid sixties.

We grew up with real music such as the Stones, the Who, Queen, Zeppelin, Rundgren Dylan, Tull, Moody Blues all on 78 LP’s hoping there was no scratches on our records as we played them as loud as we could in our basements or backyards (Might explain the constant ringing in my ears today) For some of us I think we had a motto during our senior year, Booze is Great S.X is Fine we are the Class of 79!

Most of all I remember all the good times or interactions I had with each and all of you no matter how much or little time we shared together.

Thank you to the classmates that spend their time organizing the reunions and keeping this site up to date for all of us to enjoy.