Agenda
APR 23rd 2020
The Venue
Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone, Co. Westmeath
Hodson Bay Hotel has proudly hosted thousands of conferences throughout the years and is known nationally for its warm welcome and attention to detail. The Hodson Bay Hotel has hosted the annual polymer seminar for over twenty years !
-
Central location just one hour from Dublin or Galway
-
Complimentary WiFi and car parking
Ph: (090) 644 2005
Our Sponsors
LEADING IN THE INDUSTRY
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
Meet The Speakers
Joe Wall
Joe has worked in the Petrochemical industry for 37 years mostly in Polymer sales. After nearly 20 years with ExxonMobil, including jobs in Shipping, Business Analysis, Finance and sales – Joe joined JL Goor Materials and moved to Dublin. His Degree in Management was followed by a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Strategy & Innovation. Joe is the Chairman of the IOM Polymers Group Ireland South
Mihir Goradia
Mihir Goradia is a plastics engineer with over 25 years experience in injection moulding of industrial components and extrusion of medical tubings. He has been working with Teleflex Medical (Limerick, Ireland) as a Staff Engineer in extrusions and catheter manufacturing areas since 2001.
He supports manufacturing and new developments in his current role. He holds a Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering from University of Limerick and a Masters in Management from Smurfit School of Business.
Barry O'Sulllivan
Barry was appointed Plant Manager at the Johnson & Johnson Plant in Limerick in late 2006. Since then the Plant has tripled in size to become the largest in its industry globally. In 2019 he was promoted to his current role where he has responsibility for J&J’s contact lens manufacturing globally.
An AmCham Board member since 24th November 2011, he served as president in 2018. Barry is also a member of the IDA Board since 2015. He was Chairman of the Action Plan for Jobs for the Mid-West, (a Department of Business, Enterprise, and Innovation program) from 2016 until 2019.
Colin Meade
Colin Meade is an Industrial Researcher in Additive Manufacturing at IMR. He has a B.Eng in Mechanical Engineering and after graduating worked in the medical devices area. Colin has extensive experience in Concept Generation and Refinement, Prototyping, CAD and Design for Additive Manufacturing and has a number of patents at various states of approval. He is currently exploring the potential for adoption and integration of Additive Manufacturing technology into Irish industry. Colin has extensive experience in designing moulds for medical devices and so brings a great deal of analytical and statistical based design to this project. Colin also lectures in Injection Mould Design at AIT.
Meet The Speakers
Fergal O'Brien
Fergal O'Brien is Director of Policy and Public Affairs with Ibec.
He leads and coordinates the organisation’s activity across a range of business policy issues and public affairs activity. He represents Irish business on a number of areas at both national and EU level and is currently the Chair of Business Europe’s Economic Policy Committee; a member of the National Competitiveness Council and a council member of the Foundation for Fiscal Studies. Fergal is a regular commentator on the economy and domestic and international policy issues.
Prior to joining Ibec in 2005, Fergal worked for 5 years as an Economic Consultant with Fitzpatrick Associates, where he delivered a large number of consultancy assignments for a range of public and private sector clients. He also worked as an economist with the Irish Dairy Board. Fergal holds his primary and masters degrees from the University of Limerick.
Patrik Schneider
After obtaining his PhD in Chemistry, Patrik started his career at BASF in 1998 as head of laboratory in the R&D department. In 2003 he joined Basell first in the PE product development segment and then moved to a series of management functions in the application development and technical service area.
Within LyondellBasell, he is currently heading the AD/TS department for PE Specialties, where apart from healthcare applications he is responsible for the technical aspects of the closures, pipe, wire & cable and plastomers businesses.
In addition to his functions at LyondellBasell he currently acts as Vice-President Europe of the PE100+ Association.
John Wallace
John graduated from UCD in 1978 with a B.Eng.( Mech.Eng) and in 1989 an MBA from TCD. He worked with the ESB and the Pilkington Group. He also spent 5 years working in Development Aid in Uganda and Bangladesh. In the 1990’s he moved to Shell Chemicals where he spent 10 years ending as New Business Development Manager for Europe. He left in 1999 and formed a Distribution company – Extrapol, which was purchased by Distrupol in 2001. He was MD for Distrupol Ireland and European Commercial Director for the Distrupol Group until 2013. John is currently Chairman of Polymer Technology Ireland.
Matt Davies
Matt Davies has worked for the British Plastics Federation since 2014, leading primarily on regulatory issues including chemicals and fire safety. Matt holds a master’s degree in chemistry where he specialised in analytical chemistry and is also a committee member of the British Standards Institute relating to fire safety standards.
As Industry & Sustainability Manager, Matt’s remit includes education & skills issues, industrial health & safety, and sustainability. The various issues of sustainability are a core part of his work too and Matt is an active member of the BPF Sustainability Committee – helping to further the work to ensure people understand the debate around plastics, their relevance to climate change and their contribution to a circular economy.
Dr Thorsten Thumen
Thorsten was born in 1975 and studied mechanical engineering with the core theme on plastics processing at the University of Paderborn.
He was awarded a PhD for his work about optimising plasticising equipment for injection moulding (NRV)
He is an experienced leader of development departments of machine manufactures (injection moulding, glass processing, exhaust emission dynamometer)
Since April 2019 he has been with Sumitomo Demag for processing technology development.
Since January 2010 he has taken on responsibility for Technology Department (Machine development, Processing Technologies, IoT, Training)
Seamus Clancy
Séamus Clancy became Chief Executive of Repak Ltd in 2014. He holds a primary degree in Civil Engineering from University College Cork and a master’s degree in Management from the University of Birmingham, UK.
Prior to Repak, Séamus has over 25 years industry experience as a senior executive, Chief Operating Officer of environmental group One51plc, and Managing Director of Rilta Environmental Limited and Director of Enterprise at the Rehab Group.
Repak was set up in 1997 to help Member businesses meet their legal obligation to recycle the packaging they place on the Irish market. We have over 3,400 Members, whose fees fund various recycling initiatives.
Séamus also oversaw the set-up of Ireland’s new Repak End of Life Tyres compliance scheme in 2015 and remains on the Board.
