First time NPE Exhibitor Ship & Shore Environmental, Inc.

A Successful NPE2009 Begins Its Final Day
It has been a unique event in NPE history, with the trade show now accompanied by the largest plastics educational program ever held, a design competition, and many other new features. For exhibitors, of course, the NPE trade show has been the core event, and they report a high level of strength that contrasts with the current economic malaise and promises a better business climate to come. Plastics professionals from nearly 19,000 companies from 101 countries came to NPE2009 during the past four days to discover innovations, make connections, plan purchasing, and—often enough, according to some exhibitors—close deals on the spot. While the preliminary registration is about 30% below the corresponding number for NPE2006, the number of companies represented by registrants is down only 17%, indicating a strong level of buying power. “Over and over during NPE week, exhibitors and attendees have rated NPE2009 a success as a showplace for innovation and a marketplace for doing business,” says SPI president Bill Carteaux. “With very difficult economic times and travel reductions caused by concerns about the H1N1 pandemic, it came as no surprise that attendee delegations were smaller than in 2006, but those company representatives that did come to NPE2009 were typically significant players with real purchasing power.” The conferences co-located with the NPE trade show included more than 1,000 presentations and attracted 3,213 attendee registrations.
 

Exhibitors View NPE2009 as a “Feel Good” Story for the Industry
A general feeling of satisfaction, contentment and perhaps a little relief came over the NPE2009 show floor by Thursday afternoon. Exhibitors are pleased with the show attendance and repeatedly cited the high quality of the buyers and decision-makers at the show despite lower volume. In a nutshell, attendees were here on a mission: to seriously research and buy products and services.

“It was extremely important for Milacron to be present at this year's NPE,” said Glenn Anderson, vice president and general manager for the company’s North American Injection & Global Extrusion Businesses. “Given our current situation, our presence and our ability to tell our story and the path going forward was paramount. Given the volume of traffic through our booth, it is clear that our customer's are standing with us as we navigate through the process. As a result, the show has been everything we could have hoped for and more. The traffic at the show this week has been much better than expected and as a result we have been able to book a significant amount of business in the last 4 days. The significant showing has reinforced the relevance of our company, our employees, and our products. We are proud to be able to play a vital role in the ultimate success of our industry going forward.”

First-time NPE exhibitor Ship & Shore Environmental, Inc., showcased the launch of a new company, Green Energy Industrial Solutions, in the energy quadrant of the Emerging Technologies Pavilion. The new company is President Anoosheh Mostafaei’s answer to client demands for energy efficiency, renewable energy sources as well as GHG emission reduction. “We’ve had more people ask us to survey their factories for ways to reduce energy consumption,” she said. “They are revisiting how to increase the bottom line by reducing operating expenses.”

Jeff Montanye, R&D director of Dow Chemical reported that due to customer volume he will be staying at NPE through Friday, after originally planning to depart Thursday.

Frank Opett, sales manager and trade show coordinator for Optical Gaging Products, raved about the general NPE experience, and the service of Freeman, the show’s general contractor, in particular. “SPI did a great job by selecting Freeman as the show contractor. Working with Freeman has been a breath of fresh air -- from the phone support to the onsite exhibitor services. I do 18-20 shows a year and Freeman is above every other show manager I have worked with.

Over at the West Hall’s technology theater, speakers were generating good dialogues with conversations with attendees after their presentations – in fact, many have been followed back to their booths for more in depth discussions. Attendance varied but was steady at SPI’s Business of Plastics Conference, also held in the West Hall. True to the unofficial theme of sustainability at NPE2009, the Bioplastics Session held Tuesday and sponsored by SPI’s Bioplastics Council was the most popular session, with about 80 attendees throughout the day.
 

SPE’s ANTEC Has ‘Solid’ Attendance
The largest co-located conference at NPE2009 was of course the Society of Plastics Engineers’ ANTEC, with 750 original, peer-reviewed presentations. The official registration numbers are not year available, but the preliminary statistics point to a “solid” attendance, according to SPE executive director Susan Oderwald. “In these economic times, bringing our largest trade show and our largest technical conference together in the same time and place is good for the industry and good for the people who attended,” she says. “I haven’t seen any negativity on the show floor about ANTEC or NPE—everything has been very positive.”

Packaging Conference Draws 100 Attendees
One of the co-locating partners at NPE2009 was Packaging Strategies, which presented its “PET Strategies Plus” conference during the past week. The conference included 14 technical presentations and two panel discussions. In addition, a keynote presentation in the Technology Theater in the West Hall was open to all NPE attendees and was “packed,” according to the conference organizer’s Joe Pryweller. “The stirring keynote from Nilang Patel, senior vice president of innovation and development with Coca-Cola North America, outlined Coca-Cola’s long range plans to fulfill its sustainable packaging mission and further up the ante on recycling and reuse of PET,” Pryweller says.
 

Students Explore Plastics Industry Careers via the NPE2009 Student Summit
The future of innovation and business acumen for the plastics industry is personified by the 30 bright and energetic college and high school students who attended the BPE2009 Speed Interview Session on Wednesday evening. Davis-Standard, LLC; Gros Executive Recruiters; Resin Technology Inc.; Struktol Company of America; KLA Industries, Inc.; Promold Plastics; PolyOne Corporation and Tefumi Medical were among the companies who sat down to talk about employment opportunities with the students. “These students are alert, alive, and well prepared. I'm impressed! They were comfortable with the speed interview concept,” said Dennis Gros, president of Gros Executive Recruiters. Bill Bowie of Resin Technology Inc. agreed, saying, “I left the show inspired. What intelligent, motivated -- and motivating --, young people. There is a crop of young adults with strong credentials ready to take our industry to new heights.”

Student Summit activities will continue today from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., beginning with a continental breakfast and a fun, educational polymer science demonstration featuring the hands-on, interactive experiments of the National Plastics Center & Museum’s PlastiVan program. At 9:30 a.m., Dennis Gros will tell the students what employers look for in evaluating candidates for employment. Finally, the students will enjoy a guided tour of the show floor led by Walt Bishop, SPI’s vice president, Equipment Council.