Kevin Allen
Associate Editor
Platts – a division of McGraw-Hill Companies

Kevin Allen joined Platts as an Associate Editor in March of 2007. Prior to joining Platts, Kevin received a B.A. in international relations from the University of South Florida and an M.A. in comparative politics from University of Houston. After completing his graduate education, Kevin received a Fulbright fellowship to study the effects of the free market economy and consumption in the context of support for the European Union. Additionally, he worked at the Institute of Market Economics in Sofia and has collaborated with several Bulgarian non-profit organizations including the Center for the Study of Democracy and the Next Page Foundation. His portfolio at Platts includes EDC, VCM, PVC, caustic soda, chlorine, chlorinated solvents, methanol, AA and VAM.

Laurie Borg
President NexCycle Canada

Laurie Borg joined NexCycle Canada as President in March 2008. NexCycle Plastics has plastics recycling operations in Brampton, Ontario and Red Deer, Alberta focusing on recycling polyethylene and polypropylene resins. Laurie is also responsible for NexCycle’s glass operations in Guelph, Ontario and a logistics facility in Brampton, Ontario that previously processed glass, aluminum, plastics, cardboard and other commodities that are collected by the Beer Store in Ontario.

Prior to joining the NexCycle, Laurie spent 6 years in the plastics industry as Chief Operating Officer for Canadian General Tower Limited the largest manufacturer of automotive seating cover stock and swimming pool liners in North America. Previous to that, Laurie held a variety of senior positions with KPMG and Ernst & Young specializing in the area of Mergers and Acquisitions.

Joseph Congdon
Director Global Polypropylene Consulting,
Townsend Solutions

Joseph P. Congdon is the Director of Global Polypropylene Consulting at Townsend. Mr. Congdon is a seasoned polypropylene marketing, sales and technical development specialist. He has over 25 years of experience in polyolefin products, markets and processes. In 18 years at Basell he was responsible for marketing and new business development in the consumer, medical, geomembranes, building and construction and media packaging markets. He led technical and market support teams both in the USA and for their international business. He has a strong background in polypropylene polymerization and compounding technologies. With a heavy focus throughout his career on applications and products, he is experienced with all conversion processes

At Advanced Polypro Resins (now part of Flint Hills Resources) Mr. Congdon created the product development team for the first Mitsui Hypol PP process plant in North America. They developed a product offering strong in high impact copolymers targeted for automotive applications. They introduced the first reactor TPO and achieved numerous automotive specification approvals. His process development experience at Coperion gives him experience into twin screw compounding and reactive extrusion. Early in his career he worked with the team at the El Paso Polyolefin pilot plant (now also part of FHR) that pioneered fourth generation Ziegler-Natta supported catalysts use in bulk polymerization process that revolutionized the polyolefin industry.

Joe has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Colorado, an MBA from Rutgers University and is a trained Six Sigma black belt.

Tony Diaz
Consultant, Polymers
Vice President
Phone: 1-212-659-6579
Tdiaz@mfglobal.com

Tony joined MF Global in June 2005. He is responsible for marketing and trading the plastics and base metals Future Contracts on the NYMEX and London Metal Exchange (LME). He has extensive industry and risk management experience starting in 1989 with BASF Corporation where he held a variety of sales, marketing and corporate account positions. In 2000 Tony joined Omnexus as a V.P. of Supplier Relations and also held senior positions with Louis Dreyfus Corporation and Univar. Tony earned a MBA from Rutgers University in 1999, with a Concentration in Finance and is Series 3, 7 and 63 licensed.

MF Global is a Ring-dealing member of the London Metal Exchange and a Clearing member of NYMEX, MF Global offers its customers a professional package in price risk management. MF Global’s services enable our customers to manage their metal and plastics’ price volatility by offsetting that price risk in the futures market.

MF Global’s customers include a wide range of customers including Fortune 500 corporations, private companies and individuals. Our customers include but are not limited to, principal producers, processors, consumers, and dealers of metals and plastics worldwide. In addition, a significant portion of Man’s extensive customer portfolio consists of professional investors such as commodity trading advisors and hedge fund managers.

Landon Feller
Markets Reporter
ICIS Pricing

Landon Feller joined ICIS in 2007 as a markets reporter for the Americas, based in Houston. He currently writes six weekly market reports covering commodity chemicals and products including glycol ethers, oxo-alcohols, PET, polyols and isocyanates. He also provides real-time news on issues affecting those markets. Before coming to ICIS, Landon earned a BA degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and served with the Peace Corps in Ecuador.

ICIS provides real-time news and pricing information on the petrochemical and oil markets with market reports published on more than 120 commodities. The pricing information is gathered by teams of experienced reporters in London, Houston, Singapore and Shanghai and other centres to offer the most complete, authoritative and up-to-the minute independent market information available. The company has a global staff of 170 and is part of Reed Business Information (RBI), a unit of Reed Elsevier plc - the world's leading publisher and business-to-business information provider, with 37,000 employees and annual turnover of more than $8 billion.

Kim McPhillips
Business Director, Polyethylene
NOVA Chemicals Inc.
Moon Township, PA

Kim McPhillips is Business Director, Polyethylene. She joined NOVA Chemicals in 2005, after working for the Dow Chemical Company for 16 years. She graduated from Ferris State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and from Central Michigan University with an MBA.

Patricia M. Mohr
Vice-President, Economics & Commodity Market Specialist

Patricia Mohr is Vice-President, Economics, at Scotiabank’s Executive Offices in Toronto. Pat is responsible for commodity market research and industry analysis in Scotia Economics and works closely with Scotia Capital’s Corporate and Investment Banking groups -- including the Oil & Gas team -- with Commercial Banking and with Global Risk Management. ScotiaWaterous is a leading Global Oil & Gas Merger & Acquisition & Divestiture advisor – ranked in the top ten for the past five years -- with extensive offices in Calgary, Houston, London, Latin America, Singapore and Beijing. Scotiabank is Canada’s most international bank.

Ms. Mohr developed the ‘Scotiabank Commodity Price Index’ – the first Index designed to measure price trends for Canadian commodities in export markets. Pat maintains a close interest in national and international economic & financial market developments.

Ms. Mohr holds an Honours B.A. Degree and a Masters Degree in Economics from The University of British Columbia and originally comes from Vancouver.

Prior to joining Scotiabank, Ms. Mohr spent a number of years with Alberta Energy Co. Ltd. (now EnCana Corp.) in Calgary and with CP Ships and Canadian Pacific Bermuda in London, England as Corporate Economist. Pat began her career with Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa.

John Moisson
President
JAMPLAST Inc.
St. Louis, MO

John Moisson is the President and founder of JAMPLAST Inc. , a leader in the distribution of plastic resins, biopolymers, biocomposites and additives. The company is in its 15th year of business and sells a full line of thermoplastic resins to over 250 plastic processors across North America.

John has over 25 years of experience in the petrochemical industry. After completing a Bachelors Degree in Logistics and Marketing from the University of Tennessee, John began his career with Dow Chemical in Freeport Texas. While at Dow, he held positions in manufacturing, sales and marketing management. In 1994 John and his wife Carolyn started JAMPLAST Inc. and since then have grown the company in to a successful resin distribution business specializing in biopolymers.

Esteban Sagel
Director, Polyolefins and Polystyrene – North America
CMAI
ESagel@cmaiglobal.com

Esteban joined CMAI in 2006 as Director of Polyolefins – North America, and in 2009 became Director of Polyolefins and Polystyrene for the same region. He brings to his role over 13 years of industry experience, which has provided him with the opportunity to work throughout the industry’s value chain. Esteban began his career in Spain with Repsol Quimica in 1994 as an Account Manager for Specialty Plastics, moving from there to the packaging industry as Caribbean Sales Manager with Tetra Pak. He later joined New Castle Industries as a Latin American Sales Manager for plastic processing equipment, completing his cycle of experiences in the producer and converter side of the industry.

Since then, he has worked for a diverse group of industry management consulting firms, including Townsend Tarnell as a Polyolefins Analyst for North and Latin America and Nexant Inc. as a Senior Consultant and Manager Latin America for the Chemicals division. He also worked as an external consultant with ExxonMobil Chemical’s Strategic Marketing Research Group.

In 1994 Esteban earned a Bachelor in Chemical Engineering and an Industrial Management Diploma from the Institut Quimic de Sarria in Barcelona, Spain, and an MBA from Rice University’s Jones School of Business in May of 2003.

Greg Smith
Business Director of Engineering Resins, PS, and PVC
Resin Technology Inc
The ResinSmart Team

Greg has spent over 20 years in the Resin industry and is considered by many one of the foremost experts in Engineered Resins. Prior to RTi, Greg gained invaluable experience with over 16 years on the supplier side with several of the biggest names in the industry. He spent 4 years in various engineering resin sales and marketing positions for GE Plastics, 12 years in various sales and marketing positions with Amoco Polymers in commodity resins (today known as Ineos) and with Amoco Performance Products in engineering resins (now known as Solvay Engineered Polymers).

Resin Technology Inc. (RTi) brought Greg on board from GE Plastics in May 2000 as a Managing Partner. Today Greg is RTi’s Global Business Director of Engineering Resins, PS/PVC. Greg has spent the last 8 years consulting and training RTi clients on the market dynamics, industry insights and secrets that help them reduce their biggest expense - Resin. Greg manages billions of pounds of Resins for many RTi clients giving him the industry insight to understand, evaluate and recommend every aspect of the resin market.

Greg has a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University and a Masters of Science in Civil Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. When away from the work he enjoys spending time with his wife and three children; as well as running, physical fitness, reading and chess.

Mark Stephen
Managing Editor
Canadian Plastics Magazine

Mark’s educational background includes an Honours B.A. (History) and an M.A. in History from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, N.S., where he also worked for a number of years as a historian and teacher.

He entered the plastics industry by first working as a set-up man in an injection and blow molding plant, and then as a technician/operator in an extrusion plant. He followed that with several years’ experience in plastics machinery sales, before joining the staff at Canadian Plastics.