Mr. McConnell’s pioneering contributions to the plastics industry are well recognized. Bill received the first annual “Thermoformer of the Year” award from the Thermoforming Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers and has been named a Fellow of the Society. Bill was honored with a “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the 1997 Thermoforming Conference. He was inducted into the Plastics Pioneers Association in 1997. He has served SPE as International Membership Chair, Education Chair and President of the North Texas Section. Bill is currently on the Board of Directors of the Thermoforming Division. He has taught 2-, 3-,and 5-day thermoforming seminars for SPE since 1972. He taught several years for the Rubber & Plastic Institute (England). In addition to the U.S. and England, his seminars have been held in Belgium, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and India.

An expert communicator, he has lectured widely and written extensively on all phases of thermoforming, including contributions to textbooks in the field and such publications as the Modern Plastics Encyclopedia. He wrote the thermoforming chapter for the Handbook of Plastic Materials and Technology by Irvin Rubin and the Thermoforming Technology manual that is used as the textbook in his seminars. Bill has also written a special training course for designers and engineers on what can and can’t be done in thermoforming. Bill has partnered with SPE to author the “Ten Fundamentals of Thermoforming,” the only video thermoforming training product in the marketplace today. The series includes 2 videos and a companion textbook. He is regularly asked to be an expert witness and consultant to the legal field on plastics-related subjects.

After attending Texas A & M University with a major in Aeronautical Engineering, he taught aerial navigation for the Navy and then founded and operated a non-scheduled airline for two years. Bill gained 14 years of invaluable experience as Vice President & General Manager of Texstar Plastics. He was one of the pioneers in thermoforming and plastics processing in the industrial and aerospace industries. He then organized a manufacturer’s representative business dealing in plastic sheet, film and equipment, which he operated for 20 years. In 1964 he founded AAA Plastic Equipment, Inc., manufacturing shuttle and rotary thermoforming equipment and served as President, General Manager and Chairman. He sold AAA in 1979. He is a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Polymer Science and Engineering Technology Advisory Committee at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, and also a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Polymer Technology Consortium of Texas A & M University.

Bill’s career gives him a unique knowledge of all aspects of plastics thermoforming production, from the design of equipment and manufacturing to the successful marketing of the product.