• North American suppliers report shortages of polyethylene and ABS March 12, 2010
• A123 signs auto battery deal March 15, 2010
• Superb vision brings Ohio molder success despite the recession March 12, 2010
• IBM and Stanford tout catalysts for creating recyclable, biodegradable polymers March 11, 2010
• Recycling plant to help AERT control costs March 11, 2010

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• North American suppliers report shortages of polyethylene and ABS March 12, 2010
• Superb vision brings Ohio molder success despite the recession March 12, 2010
• Danafilms doubling Ky. plant size, adding W&H extruder March 12, 2010
• Forward thinkers: Skills take GW from automotive into medical March 16, 2010
• Pallet maker Greystone forms recycling division March 11, 2010

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Anthony J. Eagan
Eagan joined Plastics News in February 1989, just prior to the newspaper's launch, as Philadelphia-based eastern regional sales manager. He relocated to Akron after being promoted to national sales manager three years later. In October 1993 he became publisher, and in May 1995 was named a Crain Communications Inc. vice president. In July 2007, Eagan was promoted to group publisher, overseeing PN and the newly acquired Croydon, England-based polymer publications Plastics & Rubber Weekly and European Plastics News. Prior to joining Crain, Eagan worked in sales and sales management for more than 12 years with Centcom Ltd., the sales organization responsible for all advertising in the American Chemical Society publications, including Chemical & Engineering News

Linda Whelan
Whelan spent 15 years in production, sales and marketing managerial posts at Penton Publishing in Cleveland, prior to joining Plastics News as promotion manager in November 1988. She oversees the newspaper's promotion, marketing and trade-show activity and was promoted to marketing manager in January 1995 and to marketing director in December 1999. She assumed responsibilities for the company's Plastics Encounter trade shows in July 2000.

Margy Prochaska
As promotion manager for Plastics News, Margy is responsible for the design, development and project management of advertising, sales support materials, direct mail, media kit content and trade show promotions. She joined PN in November of 2003 as marketing coordinator, and was promoted to her current position in January of 2008. Prior to joining PN, she spent four years as marketing coordinator at Austin Co., an architecture & engineering firm in Cleveland. Margy holds a bachelor of arts degree in advertising/public relations with a minor in marketing from Marietta College.

Robert Grace
Grace has been editor of Plastics News since its launch in March 1989. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from Ohio University in 1979 and began his career with Crain Communications Inc. in Akron, Ohio, in 1980 as an associate editor on Rubber & Plastics News. The following year, Crain posted him to London, where he directed the editorial relaunch of the monthly European Rubber Journal and helped start Urethanes Technology magazine. He returned to Akron in fall 1988 to help launch Plastics News. He was named associate publisher in October 1999 and conference director in July 2000, and helped direct the launch of the Plastics News China Web site and bilingual e-newsletter in May 2005.

Don Loepp
Loepp joined Plastics News in 1991 as a reporter, was promoted to news editor in mid-1993, and became managing editor two years later. After earning a journalism degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1983, he worked as a reporter for eight years for the Milwaukee Journal and for the Daily Press and Times-Herald daily newspapers in Newport News, Va., before relocating to his native northeastern Ohio to join Crain.

Jeannie Reall
Reall, a 1980 Ohio State University journalism graduate, was one of Plastics News' original reporters. She became a copy editor in 1990, was promoted to senior copy editor in 1996 and was named assistant managing editor in 1997. She joined Crain in January 1989 from the Vindicator daily newspaper in Youngstown, Ohio, where she had been a general assignment reporter. Prior to that, she served as United Press International's Akron, Ohio, bureau manager, and also had covered the West Virginia Statehouse for the State Journal weekly newspaper in Charleston.

Lisa Sarkis
Sarkis was an editorial assistant with Plastics News when the publication started in March 1989. She joined Crain from the University of Akron, where she had taught English composition for three years after earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy. She also has a 1985 master of fine arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Sarkis became a copy editor at Plastics News in 1990, and then worked for two years as a reporter until returning to the copy desk in February 1997. She was named assistant managing editor in 1998.

Nina Ying Sun
After joining Plastics News in 2005 as a reporter and Asia specialist, Nina Ying Sun was promoted in 2008 to assistant managing editor. She has dual master's degrees in journalism and international affairs from Ohio University. The Chinese native previously earned her bachelor's degree in journalism, with a minor in economics, from Beijing's Renmin University of China. She has worked as a reporter for Hong Kong's Chinese-language newspaper Ta Kung Pao and was a front-page editor of the overseas edition of People's Daily, China's largest newspaper.

Bill Bregar
Bregar had five years of daily newspaper reporting experience and had been an assistant editor of Restaurant Management magazine before joining Plastics News as a reporter prior to the publication's launch in 1989. A 1983 journalism graduate of Ohio University, he was promoted to senior reporter in January 1996.

Frank Esposito
Esposito joined Plastics News in April 1997. He graduated from Ohio's Bowling Green State University in 1992 with an English degree and has four years of newspaper reporting experience -- first for Suburban News Publications in Columbus, Ohio, and then for the Medina County Gazette in Medina, Ohio. He was promoted to senior reporter in January 2007.

Rhoda Miel
Miel joined Plastics News in January 2000, assuming the automotive and office-furniture beats. The 1984 graduate of Central Michigan University worked for 15 years as a daily newspaper reporter in Michigan, including the past 11 at the Saginaw News.

Dan Hockensmith
Hockensmith joined Plastics News as a staff reporter in January 2008, moving to the copy desk one year later. He previously worked for WKSU-FM, a Kent, Ohio-based National Public Radio station where he hosted and produced a nightly news program. A 1996 graduate of Wright State University, Hockensmith worked as a television news producer in Cincinnati and then as a reporter and anchor for Clear Channel Radio. In 2001 he moved to the Times Herald daily newspaper in Port Huron, Mich., where he served as a reporter, assistant city editor and columnist. He then moved to Akron and joined Rubber City Radio Group as an anchor and reporter before joining WKSU in December 2005.

Steve Toloken
Toloken rejoined Plastics News in January 2008 as a staff reporter and Asia bureau chief in China. After serving for nine years as PN's Washington reporter, Toloken moved in 2006 to Hong Kong, where he contributed regularly as a freelance correspondent. In his full-time post in Guangzhou, China, he is helping to expand and direct PN's Asia coverage while continuing to contribute regular stories and columns. He is a 1991 journalism graduate of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. His career includes stints with the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, Ill., and the Daily Press in Newport News, Va.

Mike Verespej
Verespej, a journalism veteran, joined Plastics News in 2006 as its Washington-based staff reporter. He began his career in 1970 as a reporter for The News-Herald daily newspaper in Lake County, Ohio, and spent more than two years with the Associated Press. He then joined IndustryWeek magazine in Cleveland as an assistant editor in 1973 and spent the next 28 years there, serving as news editor, special projects editor and finally senior editor. He also was editor-in-chief for Advanstar's Frontline Solutions, a magazine covering supply-chain management, and editor-in-chief of Reed's Purchasing magazine. Most recently, he was deputy news editor of Transport Topics, a national weekly business publication in Alexandria, Va. Verespej, a Cleveland native, earned a journalism degree from the University of Detroit.

Marvin Brown
Brown joined Plastics News as a copy editor in 1997. He previously had been city editor at the Medina County Gazette, a daily newspaper in Ohio. He joined that paper in 1991 as an intern, after graduating from Bowling Green State University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Hollee Keller
Keller came to Plastics News in 1999 from pipe and tube fittings maker Swagelok Co., where she was information systems/network administrator in research and development. As PN editorial research coordinator, she plays a lead role in gathering and maintaining the information published in our six annual processor rankings and "Market Data Book" lists.

Karen Barnett
Barnett joined Plastics News in March 2010 with a bachelor's degree from the University of Akron (Ohio) in political science/public policy management, and 10 years of experience as a senior credit recovery administrator and assistant to the vice president of FirstMerit Bank. She also has extensive experience with various software programs.

Jeff Williams
Williams brought 15 years of plastics industry experience with him when he joined Plastics News as regional sales manager for the northeastern and southeastern United States in January 1994. He had worked in sales and management positions at Advanstar Communications since 1979. While there he sold advertising space for and eventually became national sales manager of Plastics Machinery & Equipment, Plastics Compounding and Plastics Design Forum magazines. He became PDF's associate publisher in 1989. Based in Simsbury, Conn., Williams was promoted to national sales manager of Plastics News in March 1995, and he still retains sales responsibility for the territories noted above.

Earl Harris
Earl Harris brought more than 20 years of advertising sales experience with him when he joined Plastics News as a Midwest district sales manager in May 1993. His previous jobs included eight years as Midwest regional sales manager for Hitchcock Publishing's metalworking monthly Machine and Tool Blue Book, and two years as national sales manager of the municipal market edition of G.I.E. Publishing Co.'s Recycling Today monthly magazine. Harris, who lives in Eastlake, Ohio, works out of Plastics News' Akron, Ohio, headquarters office.

Gary Judy
Gary D. Judy joined Plastics News as southern regional sales manager in April 1995. He had served as publisher of Advanstar Communications' Plastics Compounding magazine and as district manager for its Plastics Machinery & Equipment, Plastics Design Forum and Advanced Composites publications from 1988-92. From 1992-95 Judy was district manager for Putnam Publishing's Chemical Processing and Food Processing magazines, and prior to his stint with Advanstar, he was a regional sales manager for the Journal of Commerce newspaper, Board Converting News and European Converting News. He works from his home in Easton, Md.

Gary Lindenberger
Gary Lindenberger has his own rep firm and has been selling advertising space since 1975, mostly in the plastics industry. He joined Plastics News in September 2000 from Injection Molding Magazine, where he had been since that publication was launched in 1993. Lindenberger started his career with Cahners, selling for various publications including Plastics World in the late 1970s. He joined Advanastar Communications in 1980, selling for Plastics Design Forum, Plastics Compounding, Advanced Composites and Plastics Machinery & Equipment. He holds a degree in business administration and covers the South Central region from Houston.

Ed Rich
Ed Rich has over 30 years of sales and managerial experience and joined Plastics News in February of 1996. Before coming to Plastics News he worked for Roadway Global Air as manager of the Cleveland Ohio Air Logistic Center. Rich is a graduate of the University of Akron and brought plastics experience with him. He sold industrial shrink film, stretch film and plastics grocery bags for Mobil Chemical Co. from 1981-86. Prior to Mobil he sold supermarket and industrial films for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. More recently, he served as branch manager for the TNT Express Worldwide and for MCI Telecommunications in Cleveland.

Victoria Zgorzelski
Zgorzelski joined Plastics News in May of 2009 as a Classified Sales Representative. Previously employed with the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Victoria handled a variety of national to local accounts. Prior to graduating from The University of Toledo, with a major in Communication, she worked for Adams Street Publishing Company who produce 1 weekly and 2 monthly publications.

Charla DeVoe
Charla DeVoe joined Plastics News in December 1999 as sales assistant. She previously was employed by an Akron construction company as office manager and administrative assistant. She has also worked in sales for an engineering firm and in the restaurant business. Charla assist the Plastics News staff and is the contact for media kit information.

Mary Weaver
Mary Weaver became production manager for Plastics News in January 1999. Prior to that she was production manager for sister publications Rubber & Plastics News and Tire Business. Before joining Crain Communications in 1996, she was in the ad agency business for 10 years.

J. A. Lewellen
Lewellen joined Crain Communications in the fall of 1994 and has served in a variety of roles including subscription manager, web & research projects manager, and sales manager for the Plastics Encounter trade shows. In 2002 he assumed responsibility for sales of all products in the western United States, later adding responsibility for the midwest. In 2010 Lewellen was named advertising sales director.

Ronald Shinn
Ronald Shinn rejoined Plastics News in July 2000 in the newly created position of business development manager. He served as the newspaper's managing editor from its launch in March 1989 until July 1995, when he left to become managing director of PolySort Inc. in Akron. He left PolySort in 1996 and joined Denver-based Injection Molding Magazine as special projects director in Akron. Prior to 1989, he held several editorial positions during 13 years at the Akron Beacon Journal. In his current position, Shinn identifies and develops business opportunities, from conferences to Web-related products. He also works extensively with the company's Web sites. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina.

Eugene Bukhman
Bukhman joined Plastics News in April 2007 as a part-time website coordinator and was promoted to a full-time status in January 2008. His main responsibilities include website-related sales support, online ad placement in collaboration with clients, ad agencies and IT department, and maintenance and update of various online client databases. Bukhman is a native of Moscow, Russia and received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Marketing from Cleveland (Ohio) State University.