CLEVELAND (Feb. 24, 9 a.m. EST) — Ferro Corp., a major polypropylene compounder based in Cleveland, will be sitting out NPE 2003.
“We´ve decided not to do the show this year, but rather to use our funds to work directly with key targeted accounts,” said John Comanita, vice president and general manager of Ferro´s plastics unit.
Ferro now becomes the third significant materials supplier - joining Dow Chemical Co. and Eastman Corp. - to pull out of North America´s largest plastics trade show.
“We went through a lot of discussion with several customers, suppliers and associations and determined that participation wasn´t going to be strong enough from our core customer base,” Comanita said. “We like to justify our participation through customer meetings and we determined we wouldn´t be getting enough of them this year.
“A lot of customers are controlling discretionary spending. Some who used to stay [at NPE] for the whole week told us they were only going to be there for one or two days this year.´´
Comanita declined to estimate how much Ferro typically spends at NPE, but said the firm usually sends more than 100 employees to staff its booth and meet with customers. This year Ferro will have fewer sales and marketing personnel attending the show and visiting with customers, he said.
NPE 2003 - organized by the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., a Washington-based trade group - is set to run June 23-27 in Chicago.
“We know it´s going to be a great show,” SPI spokeswoman Bonnie Limbach said. “It´s unfortunate Ferro isn´t going to be with us.”
