PVC, Polyurethane, Polypropylene Product Development Chemist Consultant

Expertise

• Photochemistry and reaction mechanisms for production of organic compounds and chemistry.
• Compounds and products in: Polyurethane, PVC, polypropylene, and fiber cement, siding, decking, shingles, fencing and windows.
• Provides long-term weathering studies in exterior housing and building products.
• Safety trainer in class room and on site; (diisocyanates), equipment, procedures, and processes.
• Patent filing, working with attorneys and patent agents regarding chemistry claims.

Products Chemist - Research and Development

• PVC, polypropylene, and fiber cement siding and decking
• Adhesive and sealants for solar applications
• PVC siding, fencing, and windows
• UV absorbers, dyes, amino resin cross-linkers for paints
• Long-term weathering study in chemicals: Acrylic-modified, asphalts for roofing and paving applications.
• Roofing (shingles and modified bitumen.)

Experience

Undisclosed Company, Senior Materials Chemist, 2010 - 2018

• Responsible for providing development support for all non-PVC siding products.
• As Chemist for the Cedar Impressions polypropylene siding product team. that significantly lowered costs by converting production to a masterbatch method without any reduction in product quality.
• Responded to all concerns with appropriate data.
• Ensured UV absorber and antioxidant package was uniformly distributed throughout the product.
• Lead chemist on a team that developed ICON, a highly-filled, foamed polyurethane siding product.
• Trained plant operators, maintenance, and managers on how to use diisocyanates safely.
• Set up the MDI monitoring equipment and instructed maintenance on what was needed to keep it in continuous operation.
• Headed the work to update chemical labels to the new GHS standards.
• Worked with corporate legal and outside patent agents on submission of patents.

Senior Polymer Chemist, 1999 - 2005

• Optimized the formulas for the company's PVC siding products.
• Solved issues with the Boardwalk, a foamed PVC-wood composite decking product.
• Most significant, added antimicrobial protection, minimized tannin stain formation, and quantified the amount of AZO blowing agent in samples of the compound to be processed.

ADCO Products, Michigan Center, MI, Acting Head of New Product Development, 2008 - 2010

• Assigned to head ongoing daily operation of the Product Development Lab, consisting of professionals and technicians, at a time the VP of research and development became overloaded.
• Streamlined weekly reports from Lab Professionals, with a new creative meeting plan, mechanisms and new systems by projecting on screen, for each weekly update, which they reviewed for the group.
• This included technician resources needed for each professional's week cycle.
• With the new ability to 'screen' review projects at various stages resolved many conflicts in prioritizing projects and technical work plan, advancing all needed projects.
• Served as the Patent Liaison with an outside law group (Vivacqua Law, Ann Arbor), executed ideas patented and working on a team to thwart the issuance of a particular patent to a competitor. We succeeded in reducing the competitor's patent to two very narrow claims.

Ply GemKearney, MO, Lab Manager, 2005 - 2008

• Set up and equipped a new analytical laboratory after the company purchased Alcoa Siding Products, including installation of TGA, DSC, FTIR, lab extruders, and torque rheometers.
• Optimized formulas for PVC siding products and for PVC fence, rail, and decking products.

Cytec Industries, Stamford, CT, Acting Head of Product Development, 1992 - 1999

• New product development of amino resin crosslinkers used in paint manufacture, specific to metals (automotive and appliances).
• One key project scale-up of lab process, making a crosslinker similar to melamine formaldehyde crosslinkers, omitting formaldehyde added or produced.
• Previously, to develop melamine crosslinkers based on customer requests, charted the company's offerings and saw the opportunity to offer a crosslinker in a void zone.
• Far from current offerings, this crosslinker was made and was ready prior to our receipt of the customer request, satisfying the customers.

Chemist; Process Chemist, Marietta, OH, 1987 - 1992

• Recognized as sole Plant Chemist out of a team of Processed Chemists, conducted interactions with all levels of plant personnel.
• Responsible for maintaining all plant production, introducing to all new products and processes developed by the Process Chemists and Corporate Chemists.
• Accomplishment in converting a lab process developed at Corporate that involved maintaining a tight temperature range by adding aluminum chloride into a workable plant production process.
• As Process Chemist, converted the production of a benzophenone UV light stabilizer from using Friedel-Crafts chemistry in chlorobenzene to a fully aqueous process. The Friedel-Crafts reaction produced one molecule of Priority One air pollutant methyl chloride per molecule of desired product. No methyl chloride was generated by the aqueous process, which reduced costs.

Rohm and Haas, Spring House, PA, Senior Materials Chemist, 1985 - 1987

• Applied asphalt research of 5 years and provided that knowledge as the company developed acrylic-modified asphalt formulations for roofing and paving applications.
• Developed a test for assessing the durability of paving asphalts that takes only 2 days to run yet correlates well with 5-year real-world exposure data.
• The incumbent ASTM method involved coating aluminum panels and determining pinholes after exposure.
• In normal conditions, the coating is over old asphalt and aggregate, a very different substrate.
• Created a new method; slurry seal made using sand of very uniform particle size and utilized as the substrate. Uniformly sized sand makes a weak (but consistent!) slurry seal, the ideal substrate for testing asphalt coatings.

Owens Corning, Granville, OH, Advanced Scientist, 1980-1985

• Invented a less-brittle glass fiber asphalt roofing shingle by adding less than 0.5% of an SBR latex.
• Previously, eliminated additives not fully compatible with asphalt, knowing, dispersibility is essential, compatibility could not be achieved, therefore, set up and ran an asphalt shingle weathering program.
• Owens had been testing and recording data on the raw materials that went into the shingles made at 14 roofing plants.
• Identified helpful weathering data on the actual products that were obtained and collated with the raw material test result.
• Key success achieved when plants obtained raw material samples actually used to make the products sent out for weathering.
• Accomplished by making up label sheets, where there was a label for each sample needed, and each label, when completely filled out, contained all the data needed.
• Trained workers on identifying hidden hazards, sessions that included classroom instruction and observations of actual work in progress, followed by discussions. Due to a previous employee's permanent injury, while cleaning a mixer using an unsafe procedure that had been in place for several years.
• The training was so effective, with attendees recommend that co-workers and subordinates also attend, that providing 8 sessions, 5 beyond the originally planned 3 sessions.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Developed a numerical pavement sealant durability test that takes less than one week to run, yet correlates well with field results out through 5 years.
• Converted UV absorber Oxybenzone synthesis to an all-aqueous process from chlorobenzene-based one, reducing costs and eliminating Priority One air pollutant chloromethane..
• Consistently met cost improvement and processability goals in PVC fencing product manufacture.
• Invented a PVC-wood composite decking that locks in tannins, significantly reducing tannin staining.
• Assisted colleagues in filing 8 provisional patents within 3 months in the highly competitive solar module arena.
• Scaled up absorber UV-1164 synthesis from a lab method from corporate research involving a spoon-fed reactant to a workable plant process.
• Part of a team that commercialized a resin that functions like a melamine-formaldehyde paint crosslinker, but involves no formaldehyde, and thus is more environmentally friendly.
• Invented an asphalt roofing shingle that is less brittle in cold temperatures within tight cost guidelines.

Honors & Publications

Languages

• German-Scientific Literature

Academic and Professional Affiliations

• Member of the American Chemical Society and its Polymer Division.
• Member of the Society of Plastics Engineers

Awards

• Recipient of Saint-Gobain STAR award, Special Top Achievement Recipient for my contributions as the chemist on the team that implemented significant cost savings in production of polypropylene siding for houses

Publications and Patents

• Author-CO Author of literature published in a peer reviewed journal
• Inventor and CO-Inventor of numerous U.S. Patents.

Education

• Ph.D. Organic Chemistry, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
• M.S. Organic Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
• B.S. Chemistry, State University of New York, Oneonta, NY