Remembering an enthusiastic leader

I just read your article on Bill Patient and you hit it on the head. As you know, before Bill joined Geon, he was at Borg Warner Chemicals. I had the honor and pleasure of working for him for a short period of time before the GE acquisition came through.

Bill's commitment, dedication and enthusiasm for people, the company and the plastics industry was clear in every effort he made and supported during this significant transition for so many people.

I wasn't there, but the passion reportedly surfaced in a "Khrushchev-style" reply in a meeting, when his passion became so apparent that he pulled off a shoe and pounded on the table. Again, I cannot attest to this and may be urban legend, but the gist of the story tells a lot about the man.

Thanks for the article and reflection on a really good man. We keep his family and friends in our prayers and will always have great memories to comfort us.

John W. Knapp
National accounts director
Ravago Americas LLC

I enjoyed Frank’s piece on the late Bill Patient, whom I knew well and was a great gentleman. He always punched well above his weight when it came to defending plastics.
RIP Bill.
Doug Smock
North Weymouth, Mass.

Thanks for the story on Bill Patient going to extremes to defend the industry. I was as big/tall as Don (I preceded him in age-related shrinkage) and no one ever threatened me, but I was always afraid someone would, as I had no experience in fighting back.

I do have experience in defending plastics’ image, however, and I understand Patient’s feelings if not his means of expressing them. I also understand Don’s question, because he was expressing what the general public thought and was trying as a good reporter to get an answer.

PVC is not tobacco, whose effects on health were proven beyond a doubt even to the doubters. Most of us can cite a relative who died of tobacco-related troubles; not the case with PVC.

Even today, the chlorophobes have their science wrong: I once asked a chlorophobe what make plants green, and when they answered “chlorophyll,” I replied, “So why are you against chlorine?”

There is no chlorine in chlorophyll, and moreover, PVC is a chloride, like salt in the oceans (4 percent), not elemental chlorine as in bleach. Need another? Oxygen in the air (21 percent) that we breathe in is not the same as oxide of carbon (which we breathe out), or of iron (rust), or oxide of hydrogen (water).

None of this matters, as plastophobes need to see plastics as bad because it supports their fear of corporate power, their longing for the natural (despite all the natural life hazards and the role of plastics in fighting them) and the basis of plastics in chemistry, the real-world science that cannot accept the impossible (miracles, magic, hope).

I don’t expect to change these reasons. I just want us to acknowledge their sources.

Allan Griff is a longtime plastics industry consultant.

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