Kenig, Macher, Osswald, Campbell tapped for SPE honors

Bethel, Conn. — The Society of Plastics Engineers is giving its top honor, the International Award, to Samuel Kenig, dean of engineering and head of graduate studies in plastics engineering at Shenkar College in Israel.

SPE announced its slate of annual awards to honor Kenig and three other distinguished individuals at an awards gala that will take place May 22, the Sunday night before Antec begins at the JW Marriott Indianapolis.

The other award winners are:

Frank Macher, an automotive plastics expert and chairman and CEO of Continental Structural Plastics Inc., won the Business Management Award.

Tim Osswald, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Polymer Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin, picked up the Fred E. Schwab Education Award. Osswald is a native of Colombia, and has a highly globalist perspective as an expert on polymer processing.

Gregory Campbell won the Research/Engineering Technology Award. He was a senior researcher at General Motors Corp. who, during a 13-year career there, worked on key research programs related to more usage of plastics in cars, and moved to academia to become a chemical engineering faculty member at Clarkson University.

SPE's Antec runs May 23-25.

SPE, based in Bethel, Conn., announced the Antec winners on April 5. SPE gave out more information on each one:

Samuel Kenig, in his PhD research from 1968 through 1972, was the first to study, model and simulate the complete injection molding process, according to SPE. His thesis inspired many commercial simulation software packages for injection molding.

Before joining academia, Kenig held several industrial research and development positions. In 1974, he joined the Research Authority of the Israel Ministry of Defense, and rose to become managing director of the Materials and Processes division from 1986-1991.

He established, in 1992, the Israel Plastics & Rubber Center (IPRC) Ltd., aimed at advancing the technical and scientific infrastructure of the rubber and plastics industries. He served as its managing director until May 2014. Concurrent with his industrial work, Kenig was involved with academic affairs for more than 30 years.

Kenig became a full professor in 2000, and was named deal of engineering faculty in 2007. In 2009, he established the Department of Plastics Engineering at Shenkar College, and was appointed the department head. Since its inception, the college has graduated more than 450 students with a bachelor's degree in plastics engineering.

In 2010, Kenig established a joint PhD program in plastics engineering with the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

His R&D work has focused on nanocomposites since 2000, leading to four patents and numerous technical publications. The Italian company Nanto Ltd. commercialized the patents to develop corrosion resistant paints containing nanoclays; they are sold under the trade name Nanto Protective Paints. Nanto also has come out with fire-retardant polymers based on nanoclays, SPE reports.

A member of SPE since 1969, Kenig has written more than 150 papers and has delivered more than 120 lectures around the world. He has 16 patents.

Frank Macher is an expert in strategic and business planning, advanced technologies especially automotive composites, product development and manufacturing. He has more than 45 years of automotive experience.

Before Continental Structural Plastics, Macher was CEO and president of Collins & Aikman, chairman and CEO of Federal-Mogul Corp. and president and CEO of ITT Automotive. He also worked for 30 years at Ford Motor Co., holding several key positions including vice president of the Automotive Components Group, a huge operation and predecessor to Visteon Corp., SPE reports.

While at Ford's Automotive Components Group, Macher expanded the company's electronics operations on a global basis. He also established five joint ventures in China.

During the early part of his career, Macher was involved in several automotive plastics breakthrough innovations, including the polyethylene fender liner on the Lincoln Town Car in the early 1970s; developing a two-shot molding process for making rear taillight lenses in 1972; a one-piece, all-plastic instrument panel on the 1975 Cougar; and an E-beam-cured paint for plastic instrument panels, with Norm Brennan, a worker at Ford.

Other major advancements include a blow molded gas tank on the 1979 Mustang — as well as other parts that have structural, vibration-proofing and noise-dampening properties.

Macher earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Kettering University, and an MBA from Michigan State University. He won SPE's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

Tim Osswald, a native of Colombia, received his bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines, and his PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the area of polymer processing.

Osswald spent two and a half years at the Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV) in Aachen, Germany, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow.

He received the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award, as well as the 2001 VDI-K-Dr. Richard-Escales-Preis. Later he was named an honorary professor at both the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, and the National University of Colombia.

Osswald's research focuses in particular in the areas of fiber orientation, fiber density and fiber length distributions. His research relates to both the composites and the paper industries, SPE said.

Osswald has published more than 200 papers, several Hanser technical books — which have been translated in seven foreign languages. He also is the series editor of Plastics Pocket Power, from Hanser, which currently includes six books, and is the editor for the Americans of the Journal of Polymer Engineering, as well as the English-language editor for the Journal of Plastics Technology.

Gregory Campbell, who got a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Maine in his hometown area, joined General Motors' research laboratory in 1968. Ten years later, he became senior staff research engineer, working on plastics.

Then he joined Mobil Chemical, and began managing the polymer process research and technical service lab in 1981. At Mobil, he focused on efforts on processing of commodity plastics, especially in the areas of film, foam and molded parts.

In 1984, he became a chemical engineer at Clarkson. During his years at the university, he held several administrative posts including department chair, chief informational officer and dean of engineering.

Campbell's research focused on processing and the interrelationships of processing and properties in extrusion, injection molding, blown film, foams, liquid crystal polymers and fuel cells.

Campbell has published more than 170 research papers, and directed 27 graduate students.

Since 2001, he has served on the board of SPE's Extrusion Division. Campbell also has been active in several other leadership positions at SPE.

Campbell has retired from Clarkson and now lives in Maine.