TORONTO—The Society of Plastics Engineers presented its major awards at an April 29 luncheon at its annual technical conference in Toronto.
W. Brandt Goldsworthy won the 1997 International Award for outstanding contributions in plastics. He invented the pultrusion process in 1950 and developed several other reinforced plastics technologies, including matched metal die molding, a plastic auto body and a plastic airplane fuselage. He helped reinforced plastics make inroads into a broad range of aerospace, consumer, recreational and industrial products.
The president of Goldsworthy & Associates Inc. of Rolling Hills Estates, Calif., received a $5,000 honorarium and a gold-plated medal. SPE's New York Section sponsors the award.
SPE officials presented Charles G. Fritz with the John W. Hyatt Award for service to humankind. Fritz did pioneering work in synthetic absorbable polymers and he helped commercialize Vicryl sutures. While at DuPont Polymer Research he worked with new polylactide and polyglycolide polymers and developed processing methods to make them commercially viable. He later joined Ethicon Inc., from which he retired in 1994.
Fritz received a $2,500 honorarium and an acrylic plaque, sponsored by Dow Plastics.
Colin Austin won the Fred O. Conley Award for plastics engineering and technology. As the founder of Moldflow Pty. Ltd. of Kilsyth, Australia, he pioneered plastic flow simulation, which rev- olutionized plastic injection molding. The Moldflow system of designing injection molds and parts replaced an empirical rule-of-thumb method with a logical scientific process.
Austin received a $2,500 honorarium and acrylic plaque, sponsored by M.A. Hanna Co.
SPE's Education Award was given to Witold Brostow, who holds several positions at the University of North Texas in Denton. In his long career he has won the respect of his colleagues, for research relevant to industry and society, and that of his students, for helping their professional and personal growth.
Brostow has held positions with Stanford University, University of Montreal, National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City, Ohio State University and Drexel University. He received a $2,500 honorarium and an acrylic plaque sponsored by the Detroit Section and Automotive Division.
Gordon B. Lankton, Nypro Inc. president, won the Business Management Award, including a $2,500 honorarium and plaque, sponsored by Nova Chemicals Ltd. Lankton bought half of Nylon Products Inc. in 1962 and gradually turned the company from a $1 million-per-year regional molder into a $300 million custom molder with facilities worldwide.
Lankton said he believes in strategic alliances and a flat corporate structure, in which each Nypro facility is self-managed by the facility's board of directors made up of Nypro employees.
Wade Adams, chief scientist for materials at Wright Laboratory, won the Research Award for his contribution to understanding the structures of polymers. Most of Adam's work focused on the architecture of molecules, their higher-level structural and morphological features, and how they influence polymer properties.
Bayer Corp. and the Southern California Section sponsored the Research Award, a $2,500 honorarium and plaque.
