Extrusion International USA 4-2021

38 Extrusion International 4/2021 EXTRUSION INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRY NEWS „ The award will be presented during SPE’s Thermoforming Awards Dinner, held in conjunction with the 28th SPE Ther- moforming Conference®. The conference will take place Sep- tember 20-22, 2021 in Grand Rapids, MI, at DeVos Place, the JW Marriott Grand Rapids and the Amway Grand Hotel. The Awards Dinner will be held on Tuesday, September 21, at the JWMarriott Hotel. As a young adult, Hal Gilham began his informal education by working at Productive Woods, his father’s wood pattern shop. Gilhamgraduated from Lynchburg College with a degree in po- litical science and for a short time he successfully entered cor- porate sales in the greater New York City area. However, mo- tivated by the freedom and opportunity he saw in his father’s small business, Hal joined the company and quickly made an impact by bringing inmodern accounting, job costing, and busi- ness operations analysis. It wasn’t long before more business came in, including thermoforming tooling. After working with a teamreworkinga fi berglassmold, Hal sawanopportunity and decided to expand the business into plastics processing. He pur- chased his fi rst machine, and Productive Woods became Pro- ductive Plastics. As the business grew with a steady fl ow of heavy gauge work, Gilham sought ways to expand his business, which included providing ‘value added’ services. By offering information on the materials, design, and the thermoformingprocess tohis custom- ers, Gilham expanded the business intomore active markets. In the 1990s, the company continued to expand into other mar- kets. Under Gilham’s leadership, Productive Plastics increased its pressure forming capabilities and began serving the medi- cal device industry, utilizing more heavily engineered materials that required speci fi cations above the usual ABS or HDPE. As new technologies were used in 5 Axis CNC machining and tool- ing techniques with loose pieces, process improvement became Thermoformer of the Year Named a core value and a catalyst for running the business. During this timeHal’s father James, the founder of the company, re- tired and Hal gained complete control of Productive Plastics. Toward the end of 2010, Pro- ductive Plastics conducted nu- merous projects where plastics purchases were equal to those in metal in cost, which was highly unusual for a small thermoformer. A former SPE Thermoforming Division Board Member, Hal joined SPE in 1991 and is now an emeritus member of SPE. Dur- ing his tenure on the Board, Gilham served as Chairman of the Materials Committee, the ProcessingCommittee, theMachinery Committee and Parts Competition Chair at a few SPE Thermo- forming Conferences. In addition, he served on the Division’s Awards and Nominating Committees. Gilham is now retired but remains engaged in the industrywhere he spent most of his 40+ year career. His son, Evan Gilham, is now Chief Operating Of- fi cer of Productive Plastics. “Hal Gilham’s career is an inspiration to us all. From the next generation of plastics professionals to those who carry the en- trepreneurial torch – in spirit or in practice – Hal’s accomplish- ments motivate us all to think big,” said Steve Zamprelli, SPE Thermoforming Division Chair. “The SPE Thermoforming Divi- sion Board is honored to name Hal Gilham as the 2021 SPE Thermoformer of the Year.” SPE Thermoforming Division thermoformingdivision.com „ Clariant announced a new collaborative innovation center to support North America’s paints and coatings industry in meet- ing the challenges of emerging trends, increasing performance requirements, andmeeting sustainability needs. Clariant’s new state-of-the-art laboratory will bring together its research and technical experts in specialty formulation ingredi- ents and additives to foster collaborative product development across all formulation aspects. Customers in the region will ben- e fi t from a unique level of R&D and application testing support. “Delivering industry-targeted, sustainable innovation to ad- vance our customers’ evolution is at Clariant’s core.We are excit- ed to expand our footprint in North America with an additional regional innovation center. It enhances our market proximity and ability to jointly develop solutions tailored to unmet needs, which will speed up our customers’ time to market in offering differentiated products,” said Gene Mueller, Head of Region North America at Clariant. “There is somuchmore tomodern paints and coatings than just color, they’re incredibly complex,” commented Andy Michael, New Collaborative Innovation Center Clariant’s new collaborative innovation center at Mount HollyWest will focus on providing rapid solutions to paints and coatings’ customers unmet needs and toughest challenges (Photos: Clariant)