Second Eastern Coatings Show Draws More Than 1,000 Attendees

The Second Eastern Coatings Show, held June 1-4 at the Taj Mahal Hotel and Resort in Atlantic City, was a success, drawing more than 1,000 representatives of the coatings industry. Visitors traveled from throughout the U.S., as well as China, Germany and Canada.
 
The Eastern Coatings Federation, Inc., is a corporation founded by the Metropolitan New York Coatings Association (MNYCA), the Philadelphia Society of Coatings Technology (PSCT) and the New England Society of Coatings Technology (NESCT) to serve the coatings industry on a broader national basis exceeding their regional orientations.

The three breakfasts each featured a keynoter. The first was Robert Fry, a senior Dupont economist and the chief economist at the Chemours Company ( formerly Dupont Performance Chemicals), named by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Bloomberg as one of the country’s top economic forecasters. He and his colleague, Bob Shrouds, won the prestigious Lawrence R. Klein Award for Blue Chip Forecast Accuracy.
 
The second day’s breakfast highlighted Dee Schlotter, a key member of the PPG Global Color Styling Team, whose function is to develop the color trends for the upcoming year for all of PPG’s business units including the automotive, the consumer electronic appliances, the aerospace and the architectural areas.
 
The Special Breakfast on the show’s last day focused on Jeff Spillane, senior manager, training implementation, at the Benjamin Moore Company. Spillane’s address analyzed the relationship between the future and the past in the coatings industry with an emphasis on what has changed and what is next.
 
Becoming a tradition at the Eastern Coatings is the awarding, by Harley McNair, of the Pflaumer Brothers Awards for the best technical papers presented at the Show. The first place award was earned by Paul Mills of Plasmatreat, North America, for his paper, “UV Cure Powder Coatings for Plastics”; Brian Casey of Evonik took second place with his paper, “Novel Silicone Resin Technology for High Temperature Applications.”
 
A grand conclusion to the Special Breakfast was a panel discussion entitled “The Science Behind New Industrial Coatings Demands and Application Evaluation.” The panel consisted of Dr. Jason Anagnostis of Absolute Coatings, Inc., Valerie Sherbondy of KTA-Tator, Inc., and Drs. Christopher Wohl, Jr. and Frank Palmieri, both from NASA. The panel was devoted to answering questions from the audience who rated it as an outstanding success.
 
Not to be overlooked is the enormous task performed by chair Dave White of Heucotech and his committee in selecting and scheduling two tracks of 40 presenters over a period of three days. Major headings ranged from Additives, Corrosion Control, UV Cure and Resins Urethane to Testing Performance, Pigments and Functional Fillers; from Exterior Coatings, Resin Epoxy to Anti-Microbial/Defoamers and Green Technology. White’s own effort, “Lab Chemist 101: Everything You Need to Know Whether You Are a New Lab Tech or a Twenty Year Veteran,” was an outstanding hit.
 
“The Eastern Coatings Federation, Inc., presented an outstanding Show, one in which we can take much pride. My gratitude to my committee members and to Ann Fody and her staff for all of the extra effort and time they dedicated to make the show an actuality,” said Bob Whiteley, president of the Eastern Coatings Federation, Inc. “Now let’s turn our attention to the upcoming 2017 show.”