From the Sector

Gunnar Meyer has been assigned the new Managing Director of A. Monforts Textilmaschinen GmbH & Co. KG in Mönchengladbach, Germany, as of January 1st 2023.

He started his career with Monforts and has spent his whole working life in the textile machinery industry. Between 1985 and 2010 he was a key part of the Monforts team in various roles related to sales and commercial issues, including as General Sales Director. He returned to the company in 2019 after working for other well-known German textile machine manufacturers in the field of nonwovens.

“Working in other parts of the textile industry, I have gained a lot of experience in the management of complex technical textile projects and my special focus will certainly be on challenges like the current energy crisis, alternative heating systems and sustainable textile finishing,” stated Meyer.

The Montalvo Corporation, an international industry leader in web tension control products and services based in Gorham Maine, has promoted interim CEO Russ Hall to Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Hall moves into this new role with over 35 years of business and leadership experience spanning a large variety of previous positions ranging from technical sales and support, customer service, sales management, and executive leadership roles. He has already been involved in and will continue the work of expanding Montalvo’s market share, improving Montalvo’s product line, and strengthening Montalvo’s international presence.  

Russ Hall explains: “It truly is an honor for me to move into this role with Montalvo. I look forward to leading one of the strongest teams Montalvo has had in its history which is focused on innovation and achieving our vision of becoming the global leader in Web Tension Control Systems and solutions. We are expanding our reach into new industries, and we are developing new products and solutions that raise expectations in our industry, while at the same time branching out to offer customers complete solutions for their Web Handling needs through in-house capabilities and an impressive group of business partners”.

Carbios announced the appointment of Pascal Bricout as Chief Strategy and Financial Officer and a member of the Company’s Executive Committee.

Mr. Bricout will oversee the management and organization of Carbios’ Finance division. He will also steer the Group’s Strategy, investor relations and the launch of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility policy. He joins the company with over 30 years’ experience in finance, strategy and international mergers and acquisitions.
 
Prior to joining Carbios, Mr. Bricout served as Chief Financial Officer for Michelin in Asia, which is a major area of growth and development for the company. Over the past 10 years, he has focused primarily on major strategic mergers and acquisitions.

Mr. Bricout holds a Master Degree in Finance from Université Paris-Dauphine. He began his career at PwC, as a manager in the International Transactions Services teams in Paris and London.

Mr. Bricout, Carbios’ Chief Strategy & Financial Officer noted: “I am thrilled to be joining Carbios and proud to take part in this concrete, meaningful advance toward circular economy. Having developed unparalleled breakthrough technologies in plastic and textile biodegradation and biorecycling, Carbios now needs to execute a successful industrial and commercial phase. This is crucial for companies using PET to achieve, from 2025, their sustainable development goals. Within this dynamic context, Carbios and its subsidiary, Carbiolice, are poised to become global leaders in the development and industrialization of innovative bioprocesses to revolutionize the life cycles of plastics and textiles.”

• Experienced nonwovens professional with extensive hygiene, food, medical, and packaging background will strengthen INDA’s key member service areas

INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, announced the appointment of Matt O’Sickey, Ph.D., as its new Director of Education & Technical Affairs. An accomplished market development, technology and product management executive, O’Sickey has more than 20 years of experience with Tredegar Film Products in the absorbent hygiene, food, and medical sectors.

Most recently, he held Director positions at RKW-North America in the areas of research and development, product design, application engineering, site operations, quality, and technology with a focus on breathable, and lamination films for controlled atmosphere packaging.

At INDA, O’Sickey will direct and expand workforce development programs for all industry members, manage the international harmonized standards activities, and play a leadership role in INDA’s product stewardship working groups and conference content development committees.  

O’Sickey has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Engineering Administration, both from Virginia Tech as well as a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. He holds three U.S. patents. He will operate out of INDA’s offices in Cary, NC.

O’Sickey succeeds Chris Plotz who left INDA to pursue other interests. 

Prof. Manfred Renner and Prof. Christian Doetsch will take joint leadership of the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT from August 2022. As renowned scientists, they have most recently shaped the direction of the institute as heads of the Products division and Energy division respectively, and will now follow in the footsteps of Prof. Eckhard Weidner, who has entered retirement.

This is the first time in its history that Fraunhofer UMSICHT is led by two directors. Both institute directors began their professional careers at the institute and from August they will have a joint hand in its future.

Prof. Manfred Renner holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering, specializing in process engineering and business development. Since 2006, he has held various roles at Fraunhofer UMSICHT, most recently heading up the Products division and overseeing its 126 employees and its budget of 14.8 million euros. He has set international standards through his award-winning research into a free of water tanning leather tanning process that uses compressed carbon dioxide. With the development of innovative aerogel-based insulation materials for building facades, he has made a significant contribution to environmentally friendly, circular applications in the construction industry and initiated a number of industrial projects. One of the notable technological breakthroughs made by his team was the development of a new type of fire-resistant glass, which can withstand even the most extreme heat. This won his development team the Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize in October 2020.

Alongside becoming institute director, Prof. Renner will also take over the leadership of the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Circular Plastics Economy CCPE in August 2022. In this role, he will represent the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft on a national and international level with regard to the transformation of industry and society to a circular economy. In addition, he will start his professorship in Responsible Process Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Over the course of his professorship, he will shape the systemic development of the circular economy at a corporate, regional and European level.

Prof. Christian Doetsch has worked in energy research for more than 25 years, spending most of this time at Fraunhofer UMSICHT. As head of the Energy division, he managed a team of around 145 employees and was responsible for a budget of approximately 10.4 million euros. His technological focal points are energy storage, Power-to-X technologies including hydrogen electrolysis and chemical conversion, catalysts, and energy system modeling and optimization. His overarching aim is the integration of renewable energies into a cross-sectoral, resilient energy system.

In 2015, Doetsch co-founded the award-winning start-up Volterion GmbH & Co. KG, which develops redox flow batteries. He attained high visibility on a global scale by redesigning stacks, one of the main components of redox flow batteries, an achievement for which he, his team and Volterion representatives were awarded the Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize in May 2021. The energy expert also acts as deputy spokesperson for the Fraunhofer Energy Alliance and task manager for the energy storage group at the International Energy Agency (IEA). He also co-founded the “Open District Hub e. V.,” an association that promotes the energy transition in the sector by means of energy systems integration.

Since January 2020, he has been Professor of Cross Energy Systems at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. In this role, he conducts research into ecological evaluation and resilience of cross-sectoral energy systems.

Albstadt-based Mayer & Cie. has been named a Top 100 award-winner for the third time as one of Germany’s most innovative small and mid-range businesses. The jury made special mention of the circular knitting and braiding machine manufacturer’s innovative processes. At the centre of the family firm’s further digital development is on the aim to boost its customers’ productivity. Last Friday, 25 June, members of the Mayer & Cie. management received the award from the science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar at the SMB summit in Frankfurt am Main.

For some time now, the focus of development work at Mayer & Cie. has been on lean management in assembly processes, on optimisation of aftersales service, including setting up an online shop for spare parts, and on product lifecycle management, or PLM, which stands for a concept of seamless integration of all the information that arises during a product’s lifecycle. A clean data structure is the basis for these measures, it’s called the “digital backbone”. It means that all product data is processed in the same database and all information is available only once and can be downloaded immediately.

In all, 436 companies, including about ten per cent from machinery and plant engineering, competed for the Top 100 seal of innovation this year. Nearly 300 were successful and were congratulated in person by Ranga Yogeshwar at the SMB summit. He noted that the award winners set a role model example. “Innovators are thought leaders; they are always pioneers too,” said Yogeshwar, who mentors the competition. “They put their products to the test and ask themselves what an ecological society and a climate-oriented world will require of them. And they check the opportunities and challenges that increasing digitisation will bring for forms of cooperation, social relationships and, with them, for employee retention.”

• INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, today announced six new board members and its 2022 slate of officers to guide the success of the nonwovens industry and its members.

Elected by the INDA membership to three-year terms that began on March 1, the new board members bring a high level of diverse expertise and insight to the management of the association as it moves forward with its vibrant growth.

“I am delighted to welcome such a strong group of new board members who bring deep industry knowledge and insights to provide strategic stewardship for our association,” said Dave Rousse, INDA President. “We look forward to working with them to advance INDA’s new value proposition to enhance our industry’s leadership position and deliver greater value to our members.”

The new board members are from global leaders Lenzing Group, Bast Fibre Technologies, Reifenhauser Reicofil, Rockline Industries, Hollingsworth & Vose Company and Principle Business Enterprises.  

INDA also announced Bryan Haynes, Ph.D., R&E Technical Director Kimberly-Clark, has been named Chairman of the Board. Barbara Lawless, Vice President Sales and Marketing, Medical Products, Precision Fabrics Group, Inc. has been elected Vice Chair of Finance, and Richard Altice, President and CEO of NatureWorks, has been appointed to INDA’s Executive Committee.

The new board members are:

• Jürgen Eizinger, Senior Commercial Director, Nonwovens Business EU/AM/MEA, Lenzing Group

Eizinger has nearly 20 years of fiber industry experience. He has been with the Lenzing Group since 2001 and most recently was Vice President of the Global Nonwoven Business. He has worked at multiple locations around the world and held various commercial, engineering and technical customer services roles.

• Jim Posa, President and General Manager, Bast Fibre Technologies, Inc.

Posa has 30-plus years of nonwovens experience and has successfully led businesses from startups to some of the largest companies in the nonwovens market. He has developed and implemented strategic business, development, operational and acquisition growth plans. His teams have worked with businesses focused on most of the major end use markets such as hygiene, wipes, filtration, medical and industrial. As a senior executive, Posa has led global businesses at Fiberweb, BP/Amoco, CEO of a Nisseki/Amoco joint venture (ANCI), Lydall, and Nitto America. A long-time INDA supporter, he has previously served on committees and as a Board member.

• Markus Mueller – Sales Director and Board Member, Reifenhauser Reicofil

Mueller brings to the INDA Board 35 years of experience with Reifenhauser in the nonwovens and film industries. His experience has included roles as PLC Engineer, Commissioning Engineer, Project Manager and Sales Manager. Mueller has extensive knowledge of the global hygiene and medical nonwovens markets. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Cologne.

• Matt Koele, Director of Global Materials Development, Rockline Industries

Koele is based at Rockline’s headquarters in Sheboygan, WI.  Before joining Rockline in 2012, he has held several business and Research and Development (R&D) leadership positions at SC Johnson and Kimberly-Clark Corporation. An inventor with over 10 patents, Koele is a magna cum laude graduate of Michigan Technological University in Chemical Engineering.

• Mike Clark, President, Filtration Solutions, Hollingsworth & Vose Company

Clark joined H&V in 2003 and has held numerous leadership positions in the U.S. and Germany. He previously served as the President of the High Efficiency and Specialty Filtration Division from 2009 to 2020.  Before joining H&V, Clark was a strategy consultant for eight years working with Fortune 100 manufacturing companies. He holds a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

• Andrew Stocking, Ph.D., President and CEO, Principle Business Enterprises, Inc. (PBE)

Stocking joined PBE in 2017 after a career in engineering, technology, nonprofits and government. He was named President and COO in 2018, then President and CEO in 2020, becoming the third-generation leader of the family-owned organization. He previously held roles in the private sector and within federal government offices, including the Department of Energy and Congressional Budget Office. He earned a BS in Chemical Engineering and an MS in Civil Engineering from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Resource Economics from the University of Maryland.

The 21-member board is comprised of elected Board Officers. One-third of the entire Board is elected each year for a three-year term by a majority vote of INDA’s general membership. INDA’s Executive Committee, empowered to act on behalf of the Board between meetings, consists of the Board Officers plus four appointees.

• Session "New Technologies for Pulp, Fibres and Yarns"

Cellulose fibres are a true material miracle as they offer a steadily expanding, broad range of applications. Meanwhile markets are driven by technological developments and policy frameworks, especially bans and restrictions on plastics, as well as an increasing number of sustainability requirements. The  presentations will provide valuable information on the various use-opportunities for cellulosic fibres through a policy overview, a special session on sustainability, recycling and alternative feedstocks, as well as the latest developments in pulp cellulosic fibres and yarns. In addition, examples of non-wovens,  packaging and composites will offer a look beyond the horizon of conventional application fields.

The extensive fifth conference session, “New Technologies for Pulp, Fibres and Yarns”, includes the participation of eight speakers and promises the reveal of various innovations and new approaches. These address the processing of pulp, fibres and yarn, with the aim of realizing most sustainable and efficient solutions. The broad spectrum of topics ranges from processing cellulose with ionic liquids, material farming and chemical modification of pulp to functionalised fibres for feel-good textiles.

Speakers of the Session "New Technologies for Pulp, Fibres and Yarns"

• Antje Ota - Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung (DITF) (DE): The Versatility of the HighPerCell® Technology for Cellulose Filament
• Carlo Centonze - HEIQ (CH): HeiQ AeoniQ – Cellulose Yarn Focussed on Climate and Circularity
• Manuel Steiner - LIST Technology AG (CH): Cellulose Dissolving Technology Platform
• Dominik Mayer - Kelheim Fibres (DE): Functionalized Viscose Fibres for Wellbeing Textiles: How Infrared Celliant® Viscose supports a Healthy and Sustainable Lifestyle
• Michael Sturm - TITK (DE): Method for the Evaluation of the dissolution Power and dissolution Quality of Cellulosic Raw Materials dissolved in New Ionic Liquids
• Kaoutar Aghmih - Hassan II University (MA): Rheology and Dissolution of Cellulose in Ionic Liquid Solutions
• Ofir-Aharon Kuperman - Weizmann Institute of Science (IL): Material Farming and Biological Fabrication of Cellulose Fibers with Tailored Properties
• Taina Kamppuri - VTT Technical Research Center of Finnland (FI): Chemically Modified Kraft Pulps to Improve the Sustainability of Regenerated Fibres

Montalvo has promoted Bryon Williams to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Having previously served as Montalvo’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Mr. Williams will continue to develop, expand, and execute Montalvo’s short-term and long-term growth strategies expanding into new markets, developing Montalvo’s product line, strengthening Montalvo’s international presence, and growing Montalvo’s market.  

Mr. Williams says “It has been such an honor working at this company over the past 11 years, and I only see greater success for the company as Montalvo has one of the strongest teams in its history, with a focus on innovation and achieving our vision of becoming the global leader in Web Control Systems and solutions. We are expanding our reach into new industries and will be coming out with new products and solutions that reset expectations on Web Control, while at the same time branching out to offer customers complete solutions for their Web Handling needs through in-house capabilities and a strong partner network. We continue to provide one of the highest levels of application, product, and process knowledge, and are constantly recognized by our customers for providing levels of support and service that others simply can’t.”

As of October 1, 2021, Dr. Annegret Vester has assumed responsibility for sustainability issues of the CHT Group. With the Doctor of Chemistry, the ideal person for the CSO position could be found in many respects.
 
Dr. Vester has many years of experience in the transformation of CHT into today's sustainability-focused chemical company in her positions as Head of Global CHT Marketing and as Head of Strategy and Business Development.

In recent years, she has been responsible for the company's excellent rating in the EcoVadis assessment with regard to corporate social responsibility activities. The realignment of the corporate strategy with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) has been one of her tasks, as has the annually published CHT Sustainability Report documenting the measures and successes.

With the appointment of Dr. Vester, the CHT Management Board once again underlines the essential importance of sustainability for the strategic orientation of the globally operating group of companies.