Bill Carteaux is battling leukemia for the third time

Bill Carteaux

Bill Carteaux, the longtime president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Plastics Industry Association, has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) – an aggressive form of blood cancer – for the third time.

Carteaux has been battling AML since April 2016. He had a round of treatment in 2016 that resulted in remission in October of that year. The cancer returned in July 2017, however, and Carteaux underwent a bone marrow transplant in November 2017 as part of a trial procedure, after which his cancer went into remission for a second time.

“This past Monday, November 5, I began another round of chemo to get me back into remission so that I can have another bone marrow transplant,” Carteaux wrote in an email entitled “My Cancer is Back.” “As they say, Third Time is a Charm!  And in my case, it is going to be this time when I kick AML’s ass for good!!”

Carteaux has an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University and a B.S. from Purdue. He was the president and CEO of Demag Plastics Group from 1998 until 2005, and assumed the leadership of the Plastics Industry Association in February 2005. In 2015, he was the youngest person to ever be inducted into the Plastics Industry Hall of Fame.

Last month, Carteaux was the keynote speaker at the Canadian Plastics Industry Association’s 2018 Plastics Industry Leadership Awards Dinner in Toronto, and spoke about his struggles against AML.