Jan 25 2010
The speakers at the plenary sessions of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) ANTEC 2010 conference will be three authorities on the business and science of polymer materials, it was announced today by SPE. ANTEC 2010, the world's largest plastics technical conference, will take place May 16-20 in Orlando, FL.
Plenary sessions, open to all attendees, traditionally take place on Monday through Wednesday of ANTEC week. This year's dates and speakers are:
Monday, May 17: John R. Verity, vice president of the Polyolefins Global Business Unit of ExxonMobil Chemical Company.
Mr. Verity's career began with sales, marketing, and strategic planning roles for Exxon Chemical in Europe. He moved to the U.S. in 1998 to take on worldwide planning for the polyethylene business. Subsequent responsibilities include Americas marketing manager of polyethylene for ExxonMobil (2000); president of Univation Technologies LLC, a joint venture of ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical Co. (2001); Exxon Mobil vice president for R&D (2005); and vice president, Polyethylene Global Business Unit (2006). He assumed his current position in 2008. John Verity is a chemistry graduate of Oxford University.
Tuesday, May 18: Dr. Balaji B. Singh, president, Chemical Market Resources Inc. His presentation will be titled Plastics and Chemicals for Sustainability-Global Issues, Opportunities, and Technology Trends.
CMR Inc. is a global strategic planning firm for the downstream petrochemicals and plastics industry. Over the last 20 years, Dr. Singh notes, the company has played a role in developing and commercializing over 85% of the innovative polyolefins, biopolymers, and biobased chemicals that the world will require for a sustainable future. Dr. Singh received a bachelor of technology degree in chemical engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India; a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University; and an MBA in strategic planning from Ohio State University.
Wednesday, May 19: Dr. Donald G. Baird, co-director of the Center for Composite Materials and Structures at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. His presentation will be titled Thermoplastic Composites from the Molecular to the Macro Scale and will focus on development of improved composites through use of rod-like molecules, nanoclays (dispersed with supercritical CO2,) and macrofibers.
Dr. Baird is a pioneer in the study of liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs), and his work on the rheology of these materials led to the development of thermoplastic composites reinforced with thermotropic LCPs. He has more than 200 publications and eight patents to his credit. He is associate editor of SPE's journal Polymer Engineering & Science and was elected an SPE Fellow in 1997. In 2009, Dr. Baird received SPE's International Award, which recognizes lifetime achievements in the plastics industry.