Kirk Morrow
Morrow is
vice president in charge of engineering services at Jarden Plastic Solutions,
the Plastic Consumables division of Jarden Corp. At Jarden he is responsible for
product design, the technical team and project management. He is a 20-year veteran
of the plastics industry, starting out as a design engineer with Sunbeam. He later
joined Peavey Electronics as engineering manager, was a manufacturing engineer
with Sanderson Plumbing and returned to Sunbeam as chief engineer for international
products. Morrow then moved to Aerus Electrolux where he was responsible for product
design and implementation. He joined Jarden in 2003 and was charged with the task
of building Jarden Design Associates as a product development group focused on
Jarden Plastic Solutions customers and OEMs. In August 2005, he was given added
responsibility for the technical team and project management group. Kirk holds
a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Mississippi State University. He and
his wife, René, reside in Greenville, SC.
Headquartered in Greer
, S.C. , Jarden Plastic Solutions manufactures a wide array of plastic products
for third party consumer product and medical companies, as well as Jarden's other
divisions. Jarden serves the consumer products and medical device marketplaces
by supplying products that include packaging, plastic cutlery, suture trays, catheters,
contact-lens carriers, and caps and closures. Jarden remains the leader in the
field of specialty thermoformed plastics, with operations that allow for flexible
manufacturing modules designed to accommodate quick tool changeovers and short
product runs.
Ray Burns
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Burns is president of Mack Molding's Southern Division, which includes
two injection-molding facilities in Inman , S.C. , and Statesville , N.C. Focused
primarily on large-part molding, advanced gas molding technology and finishing,
the Southern Division has 38 presses ranging in size from 150-3300 tons.
Burns also serves on the Board of Directors of both Mack Molding Co. and Mack
Group, which includes four subsidiaries – Mack Design, Mack Molding, Mack Prototype
and Mack Technology. Mack Group has sales of more than $250 million and employs
more than 1,400 people.
A 24-year veteran of the company, Burns joined
Mack in 1981 as an account manager at its Arlington , Vt. facility. His career
has grown along with the company, including stints as vice president of sales;
vice president and general manager, Southern Division; and now president, Southern
Division, a position he has held for eight years.
Prior to joining Mack,
Burns worked for Nypro for seven years in both finance and sales.
A graduate
of Babson College in Wellesley , Mass. , Burns holds a bachelor's degree in finance.
Geoffrey Engelstein
Engelstein
has been the Engineering Manager for GR Technical Services for more than fifteen
years. GR Technical provides complete design and production services for the injection
molding industry. He has been invited to speak to the Society of Plastics Engineers,
SPI and other major industry groups and many corporations, such as Avon, Johnson
and Johnson, and Kimberly-Clark about managing the design process, concurrent
engineering, the advantages of plastic process simulation, and other engineering-related
topics. He has a BS in Physics and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Raymond
J. Veno
Veno is vice president of Engineering for Precise Technology, Inc.
He has an extensive background in plastics, and his experience prior to coming
to Precise includes Consulting Engineer and Manager of Plastics Technology and
Development Group for Digital Equipment Corp. He also worked as the Business Manager,
C&BE at Nypro Inc., one of the world's largest custom injection molding firms.
Prior to that, he was Director of Sales Engineering at Automated Assemblies Corp.,
a leading maker of robotic and automated manufacturing equipment.
Veno's
credentials include SPE Engineering of the Year Award in 1995; past Chairman of
SPE's Injection Molding Division; and one design patent. He currently is a member
of the Board of Directors for SPE's Injection Molding Division. He has a Bachelors
of Science Degree in Plastics Engineering from the University of Massachusetts
Lowell , where he currently serves as an Advisory Board Member for the Plastics
Engineering Department.
Stephen Braig
Braig possesses 20 years
of automation experience with various automation equipment suppliers in the semiconductor,
optical disk and plastics injection molding industries. Prior to joining Automated
Assemblies in 2002, he led a $62 million division of publicly traded semiconductor
automation equipment supplier GSI Group. Braig grew up in Switzerland and has
a B.S. in mechanical engineering from a Swiss federal institution and holds a
certificate in marketing management from Harvard University.
A. Wayne Gibson
Gibson is president and founder of Pro Systems LLC. Pro Systems designs
and build automated machines and systems. Pro Systems has extensive experience
with automated molding systems including vertical and horizontal applications.
Pro Systems can provide a complete molding cell completely integrated with molding
machine, molds, auxiliaries, and pre and post mold automated processes. Gibson
has been involved with automation since 1977 starting as a high school co-op student.
He was co-founder of another automation company in 1988 and founded Pro Systems
in 1997. He spent 2 years as a plant manufacturing engineering manager designing
and procuring outside sourced automation. He is a 1983 graduate of Earlham
College with a Bachelor degree in Physics.
Mark Ermatinger
Ermatinger is the vice president and owner of Industrial Control in Holland
, Mich. Industrial Control has serviced West Michigan with factory automation
for more than 30 years, specializing in machine vision solutions for 12 years
using Cognex, DVT, Banner, and Panasonic camera solutions. Industrial Control
has evaluated more than 3,000 machine vision applications and has trained more
than 1,500 customers, primarily with automotive interior and specialty machine
builders.
Ermatinger has been p ublished in the 2005 Advanced Imaging
April issue roundtable discussion addressing automotive automation trends,
and listed as top DVT Automation Solution Provider in the World, five out of 12
years, as well as the 2001 and 2002 DVT Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2004, Industrial
Control was listed among the Top 100 Minority Business in the country.
Ermatinger will discuss future technology trends for plastic injection companies,
including factory floor X-Ray checking overmolded parts, automatic and manual
sorting & defect stations, using machine vision for mold protection, and direct
part marking/reading with 2D codes.
Eric
Mittelstadt
Mittelstadt joined NACFAM as CEO in January 2005. Prior to this role,
he was Chairman of the Advanced Manufacturing Leadership Forum (AMLF). Mittelstadt
has a long, distinguished career in manufacturing. He currently serves as Chairman
Emeritus of FANUC Robotics America, a leading robotics company in the US since
1984, and named one of “Michigan's 11 best companies to work for” in 1999. He
headed that organization from its startup as a joint venture between General Motors
Corp. and FANUC LTD of Japan in 1982, first as President & Chief Executive
Officer through August 1997, and then as Chairman & CEO through December 1998,
leading it to $370 million in revenue. Before that, his GM positions included
Managing Director in Uruguay , Product Planning Director in both Germany and Chevrolet,
and engineering and management positions at GM Engineering Staff.
He
is listed in Who's Who in Manufacturing and Who's Who in Entrepreneurs
. He is past Chair of the USA Robotics Industries Association (RIA), the International
Federation of Robotics (IFR), and the Board of Control of Michigan Technological
University, and has served on numerous other civic and charitable organizations.
Mittelstadt received a BME from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University
) in 1958, an MBA from Wayne State University in 1965, and completed the Tuck
Executive Program at Dartmouth College in 1980.
Gary Vande Berg
Vande Berg is the Director of Engineering for Bemis Manufacturing Company's
Contract Injection Molding Group. He has been with Bemis for more than 20 years,
all of which have been served as a plastics engineer for contract products.
Vande Berg has a degree from Moraine Park Technical College in Mechanical
Design. He has taken numerous courses through the UW system in plastics design,
plastics processing and tooling. One of his main focuses has been the redevelopment
of co-injection as well as looking for applications to grow co-injection.
Vande Berg is responsible for managing new product development and technology
innovations for Bemis Contract Injection Molding. He oversees nine engineers who
are responsible for part design, the tool construction process, as well as validation
and implementation of new products. He is also responsible for managing innovative
technology developments through the validation stage and then translating that
technology to commercial applications. He has several patents to his name for
both part design and process technology. He has been with Bemis for 22 years.
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