Joe Congdon joined Houston-based consultants Townsend Solutions (www.townsendpolymer.com) last year. He is a seasoned specialist in polypropylene marketing, sales and technical development. He has more than 25 years of experience in polyolefin products, markets and processes.
In 18 years at Basell he was responsible for marketing and new business development in the consumer, medical, geomembranes, building and construction, and media packaging markets. He led technical and market support teams Basell's U.S. and international businesses.
Congdon has a strong background in polypropylene polymerization and compounding technologies. With a focus throughout his career on applications and products, he is experienced with all conversion processes. At Advanced Polypro Resins (now part of Flint Hills Resources), he created the product development team for the first Mitsui Hypol PP process plant in North America. That team developed high-impact copolymers for automotive applications, and introduced the first reactor TPO that gained numerous automotive specification approvals.
His process development work at machinery maker Coperion Corp. gave him experience in twin-screw compounding and reactive extrusion. Early in his career he worked with the team at the El Paso Polyolefin pilot plant (now also part of Flint Hills) that pioneered fourth-generation Ziegler-Natta-supported catalyst use in the bulk polymerization process that helped revolutionize the polyolefins industry.
Congdon has a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado, an MBA from Rutgers University and is a trained Six Sigma black belt. Coincidentally, Congdon notes, he was born the same year polypropylene was invented (but he denies the Polypropylene is his middle name).