PLACE Recognizes Best Entries from Recent Conference

Published: November 01, 2003, By David J. Bentley, Jr., the PLACE Editor

p>Providing practical information to the converting and packaging industries —a Communication from the Polymers, Laminations, and Coatings Div. of TAPPI

Registrants at the 2003 TAPPI PLACE Conference and GLOBAL HOT MELT Symposium completed ballot forms to select winners for the Best Papers, Best Session, and Dragon Djordjevic Award. The purpose of the awards is to recognize the authors of papers who have demonstrated excellence in their presentations through originality, applicability, content, and delivery of their paper. Selection of session developers considers the technical contribution their entire session made to the conference and the converting industry.

The winners of the Best Paper Award were John Perdikoulias of Compuplast Canada, Inc., and Jiri Vicek of Compuplast International. The title of their paper was “Analysis of Film Extrusion Problems with Flow Simulation.”

Two papers received Best Paper Honorable Mention Awards. One by Janevieve A. Jones of AT Plastics, Inc., and L. C. Huang, Mairanne Kontopoulou, and Jennifer Lee of Queen's University discussed “Binary Blends of EVA and Metallocene Catalyzed Ethylene-alpha-Olefin Copolymers and Their Film Properties.” Roswell E. King, III, of Ciba Specialty Chemicals received the other award for his paper entitled “Discoloration Resistant Polyolefin Films.”

Rory Wolf of Enercon Industries Corp. received the Best Session Award for developing the “Converter Spotlight” session. Best Session Honorable Mention Award went to David G. Timm of Charter Films for his development of a session called “Resins.”

The winner of the Dragan Djordjevic Award for the best paper in the areas of extrusion or cast film was Claude Lavallee of Dyneon/3M Company Canada for his presentation on “Characterization of the Polymer Processing Additive Coating Obtained on Several Extrusion Dies.”

Conference attendees who participated in the balloting for the above awards automatically entered a drawing for a free registration to the 2004 TAPPI PLACE Conference in Indianapolis, IN. The winner was Robert T. Versluys of Sonoco Flexible Packaging.

The registrants at the conference indicate their choices for best paper and best session on a ballot form. Winners are the papers and sessions that receive the most points from a scoring system that awards the highest points for first choice and lower points for second and third choices. The winners of all the awards from this selection process will receive a plaque and recognition at the 2004 TAPPI PLACE Conference during the awards ceremony.