ACCLAIM—A Celebration of Inspiring Plastics Professionals

Nominated by SPE Thermoplastic Materials and Foams Division.

Roger Avakian has served the plastics and additives industries for forty-four years. He retired from PolyOne in May 2019 as a PolyOne Fellow after nineteen years and had previously spent twenty years at GE Plastics in technical/technical management roles. Roger helped develop the polymer blends Noryl GTX™ and Xenoy™ and the polymer additives Genox® EP and reFlex™. He has 84 issued U.S. Patents.

Roger has led SPE’s New Technology Forum and the Non-Halogen Flame Retardant Technologies Special Interest Group.

Roger Avakian received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego in 1973.

Nominated by SPE Extrusion Division.

Santosh Bawiskar is a Principal Research Scientist in the Packaging & Specialty Plastics R&D group at Dow Inc. He has worked for over 20 years in areas of thermoplastic / thermoset elastomers product development, polymer compounding, reactive extrusion and post-reactor modification technologies. Prior to joining Dow in 2011, he worked for GLS / PolyOne Corporation in McHenry, IL where he held various positions in both R&D and Manufacturing. He holds a B.S. degree in Polymer Engineering from Maharashtra Institute of Technology (Pune, India), M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Polymer Engineering from The University of Akron and a MBA from Clarion University. He has co-authored over 25 external publications / conference presentations, a simulation software for co-rotating twin screw extrusion and is a co-inventor of 21 patents / patent applications. He serves as a Board member for SPE’s Thermoplastic Elastomer Special Interest Group.

Nominated by SPE Applied Rheology Division.

Kurt A. Koppi is a Senior Research Scientist at Dow Chemical where he serves as the Applied Rheology and Die Design Technical Leader within Dow’s Core R&D organization. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota where his research focused on block copolymer fundamentals. His areas of expertise include polymer flow analysis, rheology, polymer processing, and product development including block copolymers, polyolefin based cushioning products, solar shingles, and microcapillary films. He currently serves as a board member of the SPE Applied Rheology Division.

Nominated by SPE Applied Rheology Division.

Dr. Donggang Yao is professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, teaching and directing research in the broad area of polymer engineering. His ongoing research deals with precision molding, computational rheology, and process modeling. His work in polymer processing has resulted in over 200 publications in journals and conference proceedings. Currently, he is a board member in the Applied Rheology Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers. Previously, he served as chair for several technical committees related to polymer and composites for the Manufacturing Division and Materials Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He has also served in editorial boards of several journals related to polymer engineering and manufacturing processes.

Nominated by SPE Product Design & Development Division.

Mark MacLean-Blevins has been in practice as an independent product design consultant since 1992. He has spent his career developing products manufactured from plastics. A Mechanical Engineering graduate of the Johns Hopkins University, Mark has been named as inventor or co-inventor on 49 US patents, many issued internationally. Mark’s book, Designing Successful Products with Plastics was published by Elsevier in 2017. He has received several design-based awards, including the SPE 2007 Glenn L. Beall Consumer Product Design Award, the SPE Baltimore/Washington Section 1991 Product Design of the Year Award, runner up in the 2009 Wine Enthusiast Decanter Design Competition, and a finalist in the International Design Competition at NPE 2012. Mark has served as a longtime volunteer member on the Board of Directors for the Product Design and Development Division of SPE in a variety of positions including Division Chair and Counselor. Mark and his wife Kim, parents of eight children, live and work in Westminster, Maryland.

Nominated by Detroit Section.

Robert V. Petrach Jr., nominated by the SPE Detroit Section has run the injection molding operation at Safety Technology International for that last ten years. Prior to that he was with GM / Delphi for 38.5 years with 12 years in Delphi Injection Molding Center of Expertise. Bob is currently serving as the Secretary of the SPE Detroit Section, a role he has held since 2014. Bob has been an active member of the Detroit Section Executive Board since 2009 in a variety of positions, including President.

He supports STEM education activities collaborating with SPE Divisions and other professional societies, SAE and SME, on technical events as well as Engineering Society of Detroit STEM activities, especially Future Cities. Prior to becoming active in SPE, Bob served as Chair of SME Oakland Macomb Chapter and Chair of SME Plastics, Composites, and Coatings Technical Community, 2009-2010. Bob received the SME Award of Merit, 2011.