Plastics Pioneers name four new members

Four new members have been inducted into the Plastics Pioneers Association: Stan Glover, Alexander (Sandy) Guthrie, Charles Pratt and Charles Sears.

McHenry, Ill.-based PPA inducted the four during its biannual meeting, held Feb. 19-23 in San Antonio.

PPA also announced that its new president is Gail Bristol, who retired last year after a 32-year career at the Society of Plastics Engineers. Veteran machinery executives Al Hodge and Wolfgang Meyer were named vice president and secretary, respectively. Ashley Rice was appointed treasurer.

PPA is a non-profit organization with more than 200 members, who have at least 25 years of experience in the plastics industry.

New PPA members are:

Stan Glover, sales director at Zeiger industries Inc. Canton, Ohio, where for the past 15 years he has been responsible for screw tips and end caps for injection molding. Glover also worked for nine years at Crucible Materials Corp. He also worked at Herzog Corp, responsible for sales of shutoff nozzles in North America.

Glover is a frequent speaker about issues of wear and corrosion issues related to injection molding. He serves a leadership role on several committees of the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc.

Sandy Guthrie has been in the plastics machinery industry for more than 35 years, starting at Sterling Extruder, where he worked for 11 years, rising to the position of director of sales.

He also was co-founder, CEO and president of Merritt Extruder Corp. When Davis-Standard bought Merritt, he stayed on a business director. For the last four years, Guthrie has been president and CEO of ADG Solutions in Fairfield, Conn., a company he founded that represents machinery builders focused on plastics recycling.

Guthrie has been an SPE member for 25 years. He has been involved in numerous SPI committees for the last 12 years, including the national board of directors and the executive board of the Equipment Council.

Charles Pratt's career has spanned five decades. He held polymer technology and research and development positions for DuPont Co., GE Plastics (now Sabic) and Owens Corning Corp.

Pratt, currently a consultant in Gig Harbor, Wash., holds 19 patents. He has been an SPE member for 36 years, and serves on the board of the society's Pacific Northwest Section. He also has been a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Charles Sears has worked in plastics machinery since 1980, holding management positions at Polymer Machinery, Automated Assemblies and AEC/Nelmor. Since 1984 Sears has been president of Dri-Air Industries Inc. in East Windsor, Conn., a company founded by him and his wife, Esther.

Dri-Air has desiccant-bed drying equipment running at plastics factories around the world. Sears is a member of SPI's Auxiliary Equipment and Standards Committees. He also is active in SPE.