The Plastics Pioneers Association has announced four new members.
PPA members have at least 25 years of experience in the plastics industry. The group's main purpose is to award scholarships to students seeking a career in plastics and to preserve the history of the industry.
New inductees are:
• Gregory Campbell, whose plastics career began in 1968 when he went to work as a senior staff research engineer for General Motors Research, a position he held until 1981. Then he joined Mobil Chemical Co. as a supervisor in polymer process research until 1984, when he began molding young minds as a professor of chemical engineering for Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y.Campbell was a professor for 23 years before starting his own consulting company, Castle Research Associates in Jonesport, Maine.
Over his career, Campbell has been extremely active in the Society of Plastics Engineers. He has been a member of the SPE Extrusion Division board and chairman of the finance committee since 2002. He is an SPE fellow and an honored service member.
• Paul Dumesnil Jr, whose plastics career focused on materials and distribution. In 1983, he joined Monsanto Co. in Kenilworth, N.J., as a sales representative. From there he went to work for Huntsman Corp. in the Chicago area as regional sales manager for polystyrene.
After stints in sales and administration for Baeco Inc. and Ashland Chemical Co., Dumesnil returned to Huntsman as national accounts manager based in Georgia. In 1996 he joined Trademark Plastics Inc. in Linden, N.J., as senior account manager; and from 2000 to 2006 he worked in sales and marketing for Maryland Enterprises Inc.
Since 2007 Dumesnil has been senior vice president for Plastic Solutions in Tampa, Fla., a distributor of prime engineering and commodity thermoplastics.
• Stephen Hoenig has 36 years of industrial experience, most of that in plastics. He started in the industry in 1977 as a chemist for Chromalloy, and spent four years there before he joined Dow Chemical Co.
In his 30-year career at Dow, Hoenig served in a wide variety of functions, including polyolefins research chemist, polyethylene technical service and development leader and Insite development group leader. Ultimately, he became global technical service and development leader at Dow.
While at Dow, he received the Futures Award for the development of new plastics products for thin-wall molding that achieved sales in excess of $23 million in the first year of commercialization.
Hoenig currently has his own business based in Houston, where he is vice president and chief technology officer. That company, H&H Consulting LLC, specializes in injection molding, profile extrusion, material science, and latex.
• Stuart Swain has been in plastics since 1982, when he started his career with color compounder Chroma Corp. in McHenry, Ill, as a sales engineer. He was promoted to vice president of market development at Chroma in 1986.
Swain then became a plastics industry consultant when he joined Friedman, Eisenstein, Raemer and Schwartz in Chicago. From 1997-2000, Swain served as vice president and general manager of Midwest Color in Niles, Ill. He went to work for Ampacet Corp. and RTP Co., before rejoining Chroma as director of sales and marketing in 2007.
Swain holds three patents. He has been a member of the Photoluminiscent Safety Association and the Closures and Containers Manufacturers Association, and has been extremely active with the Chicago Section of the SPE, serving president in 1992-1993.
