Names in the News: profine, Strongwell, IKV, Plasmatreat

People and companies in the news include plastics profile processor profine and its new CEO, plus two new exec appointments at thermoset plastics processor Strongwell. The IKV bids farewell to longtime leader Walter Michaeli, and Plasmatreat welcomes a new sales and service agent.

At profine GmbH (Troisdorf, Germany), one of the world's largest plastics processors of extruded profiles for the B&C market, Frank Pohl was named the new CEO, with his appointment effective August15, 2011. He succeeds Marco von Maltzan, who is leaving profine after more than 3 years.

Pohl's career has spanned sales, marketing and general management positions, with the last 11 years spent managing several of Henkel/Ecolab's businesses as a member of the company's European management team.

profine was established in 2003 when its predecessor, HT Troplast, consolidated its profile business activities (KBE, Trocal and Koemmerling) under one roof. It has 3200 employees at 28 locations in 21 countries, with about 1800 of those employees at its sites in Germany. The Arcapita investment bank, based in Bahrain, owns it.

In Bristol, VA, Strongwell Corp., the world's largest pultruder of fiber reinforced polymer composites, announced that Glenn Barefoot has been named vice president, business development and marketing. He will be responsible for overall global development of new Strongwell corporate products, markets, and sales channels; as well as marketing of all Strongwell corporate products. He joined Strongwell in 1994 after spending the majority of his early career in the steel industry, and was Strongwell's corporate marketing manager for more than 16 years. Since October 2010 he has handled both sales and marketing, but now the thermoset plastics processor  has hired Tom Rosser as its new VP sales. He joins Strongwell with more than 30 years of experience in domestic and international sales; his most recent position was VP of the Southern Region with Mill Steel in Birmingham, Alabama.   

Back in Europe, on July 1 a farewell celebration was held at Germany's Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV; Aachen, Germany) for one of the industry's most senior academics. More than 600 guests bid farewell to Professor Walter Michaeli, who has headed the IKV for 23 years and will retire at the end of this month. We've had the pleasure to visit the IVK many times and report on that Institute's many processing developments.

Plasmatreat, which makes and markets in-line atmospheric plasma units for use in high-speed surface pre-treatment for automotive, packaging and other applications, has appointed WittcoSales, based in Encinitas, Southern California, as an independent manufacturer representative. WittcoSales markets capital equipment and electronic consumables used in the SMT and microelectronics processes, with its customer base within the medical, industrial and aerospace electronics industries. Plasmatreat hopes the new rep can help it reach electronic manufacturing companies producing tele-/datacom, medical and aerospace applications.