Below are pictures and background of the plastics pioneers who have departed our community. With their passing, they leave a legacy of outstanding contributions to the plastics industry over their lifetime. What better way to acknowledge a member of our plastics community than with a donation to the Western Plastics Pioneer Scholarship Fund on their behalf!
Here is the opportunity for members of Western Plastics Pioneers, and others in the plastics community, to acknowledge and honor someone who has passed with a single or yearly donation to the WWP Scholarship Fund on their behalf.
Continue their legacy by contributing a scholarship donation on their behalf, with your name listed or as anonymous.
Please reach out to one of our WPP board members to discuss how you can make a contribution:
Vivian Chavez 714-894-5252 x213 vchavez@lairdcc.com
Susan Granger 714-546-4667 susang@modifiedplastics.com
Roger France
Roger France passed on April 13th, 2024. Roger’s partner, Barbara Somers shared that the previous week he had two heart attacks and never recovered. This news came to all of us as a shock, as we never considered not again hearing Roger’s infectious laugh or feeling his endearing compassion.
Roger was a dear friend and a respected colleague. He always had delightful stories to tell and the great relationships he developed along his career path. Roger joined the board of directors back in 2008 and decided to “retire” from the board last year due to his health issues.
Roger’s career started in the plastics industry begining in 1962 as a molding machine operator for R&G Sloane Mfg. Co. in Sun Valley, California. That experience led him to a very successful interview with a new company to the West Coast – Marbon Chemical Division of Borg Warner as a Customer Service Representative on March 1, 1965 covering the 11 Western States.
Roger was promoted to Technical Sales Representative in July 1970. Later he joined GE Plastics as Market Development Specialist. He then went on to being the sales manager for a custom molding company and moved to Tacoma, Washington – joining Monitor Molded Products.
In March 1980 Borg Warner Chemicals (Marbon) offered the opportunity to establish a formal “application development program” on the West Coast and Roger returned to Borg Warner. He got to work with Apple Computer on the redesign and change of manufacturing of the Apple II, changed from structural foam molding and painting to straight injection molding.
In 1986 Bob Carroll, Mobay, lured him away from Borg Warner and a move back to Southern California where he worked for other manufacturing companies specializing in plastic resins until he retired in 2009. . During the next few years until my retirement in 2009 .I joined the Board of the Western Plastics Pioneers in 2008 and served in several capacities: Chairman of Scholarship(s), President and finally in my current capacity as Treasurer.
Donations for Roger France Scholarship Fund-2024:
John Hoven
John P. Hoven, a true plastics pioneer, passed away on August 29, 2023, following a brief hospitalization.
After graduating from South Dakota School of Mines John served in the U.S. Army as an officer. After leaving the service he joined Beloit Machinery as a sales engineer. Recognizing the business opportunity in the engineered structural foam industry John moved quickly to create Structural Plastics Systems located in Torrance, California. There he manufactured business machine housings, industrial equipment housings, and innovative sports equipment including snow skis and scuba support equipment. Many years later as the industry shifted away from structural foam for higher volume products, he folded SPS to become the Vice President of Pelican Products in Torrance, California. Pelican Products served the water sports industry as well as engineered industrial case market serving fire and safety, military, construction, business machine and other markets.
John became well known in the plastic industry and was appointed President of the Society of Plastics Industry Society of Plastic Engineers. He was also inducted into the Western Plastics Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2011. John was a significate contributor in the growth of the plastics industry on the West Coast. His unique and charming disposition of treating everyone he met equally and never speaking poorly of charming everyone he encountered who knew him well.
Donations for John Hoven Scholarship Fund-2024:
Bob Berwick
Robert (Bob) Berwick 91 passed away October 5, 2022 following a brief illness. He was born in Queens, NY and graduated high school early to attend Lowell Institute in Massachusetts with a degree in Engineering. He enlisted as an officer in the Navy where he served as XO on a LST, patrolling the Aleutians at the end of the Korean War; he was one of the youngest, at that time, to be made Captain. He served in the Navy reserves for 20 years and retired as Commodore of the Long Beach California Naval Base. He used the GI bill to attend the University of Michigan, after Korea, and received an MBA – go Blue!
He began his plastics work on the East Coast and moved West to California, where he worked for over 60 years, well into his late 80’s. he worked as a rep for years, while always using his engineering skills to successfully sell machinery, and then his MBA when he became a partner with Don Sullivan and they formed Sullivan Plastics. After many successful years within many different facets of the plastics industry and finding the thought of retirement not his cup of tea, he became a business owner again forming Sentinel Plastics/Graham Plastics in his late 70’s. He worked hard and enjoyed the many long and lasting friendships he developed along the way. He was loved by all who met his and is missed deeply by those same individuals.
Donations for Bob Berwick Scholarship Fund-2024:
George Epstein
George passed away peacefully at the age of 95 on March 29, 2022. Born in Boston, he attended Boston Latin School, UMass. Amherst, and MIT (chemistry). George Epstein, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came west from Boston in the early 1950s and found his niche in the aerospace industry. As a graduate student/research fellow at MIT, George Epstein studied the effects of elevated temperature on structural adhesives. He invented lightweight components known as honeycomb composite structures that are like building blocks for making airplane and rocket fuselages. He developed adhesives for North American Aviation, Boeing and Aerojet that were used to manufacture NASA spacecraft for the Apollo, Titan and Polaris missions. His adhesives were an integral part of the space program and made it possible for dozens of space missions and satellites to be deployed. The adhesives Epstein created are still used today. Among his many pioneering achievements, Epstein’s 1954 book, Adhesive Bonding of Metals, was the first on structural adhesives. George was also the father of the SPE’s RETEC for many years. Although he retired 1991, he remained a consultant in aerospace engineering until a few years ago.
Donations for George Epstein Scholarship Fund-2024: Ed Laird
Don Ashleigh
Don Ashleigh passed away in early 2022 at the age of 80. Don “Big D” was one of our plastics family members who unfortunately contacted the Covid virus and did not survive his stay at the hospital. Don received a Degree in Chemical Engineering in the early 60’s, then went to work for Shell Chemical for about 5 years. Don called on Ray Dowling, owner of UPM Plastics, where they developed a strong relationship and mutual respect. Ray felt that Don was an outstanding salesman with a very strong technical background and offered Don a Technical Engineering position initially. Within 3-4 years, Don was promoted to VP Sales, as well as, being offered an ownership position at UPM. Don became a permanent fixture at UPM for over 50 years. What an accomplishment in today’s plastics field! Don was well known in the plastics industry and for the last 30 years had weekly lunch meetings with other plastic pioneers such as Joe La Fountain, Jack Williams, Jim Brett, Skip Humphrey, and Jim Frand. In addition, Don was involved in SPI and SPE for many years.
Donations for Don Ashleigh Scholarship Fund-2024:
Tim Worthington
Tim passed away from pancreatic cancer on June 7th of 2022. He held a degree in Anthropology yet was a plastics mold design engineer. Tim was known throughout our plastics industry as an expert plastic consultant. If you had a He-Man action figure in the 80’s, chances are his mold design crated the tool those toys came out of. He even helped Tom Sims with one of the first snowboard binding designs.
He could pick up any plastic product and instantly tell you the type of mold it was, if the designer cut corners and if the wrong plastic was used. He was a perfectionist. That’s why Mattel sent him to China when Barbie wasn’t coming out of the mold correctly.
Working for Mattel, my parents lived in Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia, and Hong Kong during the changeover. He consulted his entire career throughout the world. He was a professor at UC Riverside and a guest speaker at plastic mold design events around the globe.
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May 2020, and he knew his best-case scenario was 2 more years. He was a stubborn old Marine and he fought it all the way to the end.
Donations for Tim Worthington Scholarship Fund-2024:
Doug Halliday
Doug was born to Captain Robert K. Halliday and Carlene Wolfley Halliday in Dayton, Ohio, on November 24, 1943. His father was serving in WWII in the U.S. Army Air Force and was stationed at Wright Patterson Air Base. After the war, Doug’s family moved to South Gate, California and later (1954) to Whittier.
After graduating from Sierra High School in 1962, Doug attended Cal State Long Beach. Doug married his girl friend of 5 years, Susan Batsell, and continued his education at Cal State Fullerton. Upon graduation, he began working in the plastic industry, selling the raw resin to manufactures (Mattel, etc.). Doug knew all facets of the industry from cleaning floors and machinery, in his high school years and then making containers, selling colorant, resin etc. and becoming national sales manager. He served as Vice President of an Australian company for several years, returning to his national sales manager position until retirement.After a brave fight, Doug succumbed to pancreatic cancer on August 18th, 2021.
Donations for Doug Halliday Scholarship Fund-2024:
Bill Brown
On January 28th, 2021, William Brown “Bill” passed away from Covid related illness. Bill Brown was one of the owners of LB Mold who brought smiles, laugher, and became a consummate prankster to family and close friends in the plastics industry.
Bill Brown and Max Limon started their tooling careers in Chicago, and both ended up moving to California. They worked together from 1976 to 1979 at IMC Plastics, Aerocraft, and Lassen Tool. In 1979 they decided to start their own tooling facility, LB Mold. Their tool shop quickly grew with key customers like Structural Plastics, Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Everest Plastics, Modern Plastics, UPM Plastics, Pelican Products, Memorex, and Applied Engineering Products. LB Molds became the “go to” tool shop for structural foam tooling and large tooling packages.
Bill was a dedicated family man, jovial and friendly, who maintained a wide circle of friends and business associates. He brought smiles to friends and strangers alike, telling stories came easy to Bill. He valued hard work and education, loved a good party, and was quite well known for his proclivity to prank people and to tell inappropriate jokes.
Donations for Bill Brown Scholarship Fund-2024: