TROY, MICH. - Textron Automotive Co. of Troy announced it received several large contracts to supply parts and components for future automobile programs. Textron Automotive Trim Operations won an $8.5 million annual contract to supply headliners to Ford Motor Co. for use in the 1997 Mustang and 1998 Villager/Quest. The firm will make the headliners in Westland, Mich.
Textron Automotive Trim Operations, consisting of what formerly were known as the Exteriors and the Interiors divisions, is a newly formed unit of Textron Automotive Co.
For interior systems, the company said its McCord Winn Division was awarded a $6 million annual contract to supply low-pressure lumbar seating mechanisms for the 1996 General Motors Corp. C/K truck model. McCord Winn will make the lumbar systems at its Manchester, N.H., facility.
Langill, former SPI lobbyist, dead at 50
WASHINGTON - Marily Jean Langill, 50, a former Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. lobbyist, died Aug. 22 at a Washington hospital after suffering a heart attack. She had pneumonia.
From June 1990 to September 1993, Langill served as assistant director of federal government affairs at SPI, covering worker health and safety and product safety issues. She was active in the SPI effort to seek a legislative solution to the ``bucket drowning'' issue, which spotlighted the problem of small children falling into 5-gallon polyethylene containers and drowning.
In February, the Consumer Product Safety Commission halted the governments' efforts to redesign buckets and chose to accept an industry-sponsored child safety program as an alternative to legislation.
Langill, a native of Wisconsin, came to Washington in 1972, first working as a legislative aide to Democrat Rep. Robert Kastenmeier. She later became chief of staff to Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., then joined SPI.
After leaving SPI in a budget-induced layoff, Langill became an independent lobbyist and political consultant.
She leaves her parents, three brothers, a stepbrother and stepsister.
Mercedes to sell share in plastics unit
STUTTGART, GERMANY - Mercedes-Benz AG said it plans to sell a 75 percent stake in its plastics parts-making operations atWoerth, Germany, to Sommer Allibert of France for undisclosed terms.
Sommer Allibert plans to invest $40.7 million in Woerth during the next four years. Of that investment, some $13.6 million will be used to establish an interior trim development center in the Woerth area.
Jean-Michel Elter, a member of Sommer Allibert's executive board and management committee, said the Woerth development center will focus on the firm's efforts to provide complete auto interiors. The development center will serve Mercedes and other European automakers. Elter spoke by telephone Aug. 31 at Sommer Allibert headquarters in Nanterre, France.
Sommer Allibert will lease the Woerth land and buildings from Mercedes, which is based in Stuttgart. The deal is expected to be completed by Oct. 1, Elter said.
About 800 people work at the Woerth plastic operations. Elter said Sommer Allibert will manufacture dashboards there for the Mercedes S-class vehicles, and other plastic parts.
Polycom buying GE compounding plant
OXNARD, CALIF. - Polycom Huntsman Inc. will acquire its first California compounding capacity by purchasing a plant in Oxnard with seven extrusion lines from GE Plastics.
Both companies announced the deal Aug. 28. Terms were not disclosed.
The Oxnard plant compounds four GE engineering resins: Cycolac ABS; Valox, a polyester; Geloy, a weatherable, acrylic styrene acrylonitrile terpolymer; and Lexan polycarbonate. Polycom Huntsman will continue to compound the GE Plastics materials at the plant.
Ralph Andy, president of Polycom Huntsman, said his company also will compound its filled polypropylene for several existing customers in California. The firm, based in Washington, Pa., has a relatively small customer base on the West Coast, but Andy said he wants to win new customers.
Total capacity of the plant is 70 million pounds a year, Andy said. About 75 people work at the Oxnard plant.
