G. Gregory (Greg) Benge Email & Phone Number

Charlotte, North Carolina, Us

R&D Leadership responsibilities covering all of PET Resins R&D, Specialty Polymers R&D, R&D Labs, R&D Analytical, supporting all DAK Americas/Alpek Polyester Sites and Businesses, reporting to VP of PET & PTA Technology and Licensing. Responsibilities include R&D Lab management (incl. equipment & Lab Safety); personnel management (Technical Specialists, BS/MS/PhD chemists and chemical engineers); Objectives development and performance management; Recruiting and team building; R&D Project oversight and resource allocation; Budget prep & compliance; intellectual property; managing external relationships and collaborations; improvements in project planning and execution, project selection, ideation and new idea generation, leadership development of team; etc.

Charlotte, North Carolina, Us

New R&D Leadership responsibilities primarily covering Specialty Polymers R&D, R&D Labs, and R&D Analytical, supporting multiple DAK Americas/Alpek Polyester Sites and Businesses, reporting to VP Technology. Responsibilities include R&D Lab management (incl. equipment & Lab Safety); personnel management (Technical Specialists, BS/MS/PhD chemists and chemical engineers); Objectives development and performance management; Specialty Polymers R&D (and some PET Resins R&D and Fibers R&D) Project oversight and resource allocation; Budget prep & compliance; managing select external relationships and collaborations; etc.

Charlotte, North Carolina, Us

Polymer product and process research and development for Specialty Polymers and PET Resins, across multiple DAK Americas Sites, on both continuous and batch processes, and across multiple polymer process technology implementations and scales. Using a wide variety of co-monomers and additives.

Charlotte, North Carolina, Us

Selected Responsibilities and Key Accomplishments:* Support for multiple manufacturing sites and businesses, including technology transfer associated with acquired assets* Successful conversion of acquired Cedar Creek Batch Plant facility to DAK products, including process changes, specifications, & product formulation recipes (including major raw material changes) for multiple polymers. - Produced multiple customer samples & new products. - Achieved several major technical accomplishments, including developing numerous new products in short timeframe. - Process/product development from 1-lb lab reactor through commercial plant production. - Continued lab-reactor based process/product development for several new-to-DAK polymers. * Mentoring of young process engineers, chemists, lab techs; several direct reports over time as well. * Successfully designed and executed several solid-state polymerization trials and commercializations at multiple sites, including some new-to-DAK products, on existing large-scale continuous manufacturing line plus on some batch assets as well.* Developed and demonstrated methodologies for successful process/product development at 1-lb laboratory batch reactor scale for several new-to-DAK PET-based resins, with scale-up through pilot plant.* Successfully produced numerous customer samples of melt-phase polymer samples, crystallized resins, solid-state polymerized resins, as well as injection-molded preforms & blow-molded bottles.

Charlotte, North Carolina, Us

Summary:Demonstrated high level of technical accomplishments in Research & Development (R&D) setting in short timeframe and demonstrated creativity, innovation, and passion for process R&D through development and application of (1) lab-scale experimental methods for generation of fundamental data and (2) mathematical models for improved understanding of chemical and physical phenomena taking place in new-to-world process technology as well as existing process technology and plant manufacturing processes.Selected Key Roles, Responsibilities, and Accomplishments:* Designed/executed fundamental research on PET chemistry. Combined experimental work with first principles math models. Validated models with lab & large commercial-scale process data. Successfully applied models and data to help troubleshoot several process problems and for improved understanding of conventional and new-to-the-world processes.* Designed/executed Pilot Plant polymerization studies for polymer process/product R&D. * Designed/executed research program for new product development (new to DAK) based on extensive sample collection (across multiple sites & process technologies) and analysis that led to commercial-scale sample production on first attempt and with sample produced with significantly less transition material than expected. The sample also passed the customer evaluation.

Charlotte, North Carolina, Us

Summary:Demonstrated high level of leadership, vision, energy, fundamentals, analytical problem solving abilities, and accomplishments in a short time (under two years) that led to improvements in quality & efficiency of QA/QC Department. Plant Operations & product quality improvements also seen. Helped establish Resins QA/QC across 2 additional sites.Selected Responsibilities and Accomplishments:* Effectively managed PET resin product quality for multiple products across multiple sites, including product testing & release, establishment of required quality systems, supplier non-conformances and customer concern and complaint process.* Managed Quality Control (QC) Laboratory in Fayetteville, NC, including supervision of Shift Lab Technicians, chemists, Quality Management System/ISO Leader, and Lab Manager. Prepared/managed Department budget, objectives, appraisals, policies, etc. Led/directed analytical method development.* Developed/led execution of world-class vision for Resins QA/QC Department and QC Laboratory. Secured Management buy-in for vision, including hiring for growth of QA/QC. * Successfully reduced lab measurement variability, leading to improved process performance and product quality from manufacturing plant.* Routinely reported on QA/QC initiatives & programs to DAK Americas Officers (Pres, VP’s, Dir.’s) to show continuous improvement and attainment of Department objectives.* Interfaced with customers around quality partnerships, quality issues, and special testing, including traveling quarterly to one customer to review DAK Quality with them.* Organized, hosted, and provided accountability around customer quality audits: four successful major on-site Quality Audits by customers in one 14 month period.

Charlotte, North Carolina, Us

Summary:Demonstrated ability to quickly grasp new technical area (solid-state polymerization process) and acquire and use expert knowledge to solve complex problems in a manufacturing support and process engineering environment. Identified and implemented numerous process improvements in short time.Selected Key Accomplishments:* Developed strategies for optimizing plant rate & improving control of plant for increased Grade 1 yield.* Executed three major plant improvement projects (in < 2 years), leading to increased plant rate of 33+%. * Leader/Co-leader for 6 major projects in 2 years that significantly impacted product quality and/or Grade 1 yield of process, based on expert knowledge of the process technology and PET chemistry.* Helped develop technical data and case, and successfully negotiated for significant “rebate” due to demonstrated inability of plant equipment to meet performance criteria.

Fayetteville, Nc, Us

Developed/taught first semester Chemical Engineering course: "Chemical Process Principles" (also known as Chemical Engineering Material & Energy Balances). Covered topics such as degrees-of-freedom analysis; steady-state material balances from single to multiple units, with reaction(s), with recycle and bypass, etc.; and single-phase and multiphase systems, including ideal gases, equations of state for nonideal gases, Gibbs Phase Rule and Raoult's Law; and finally energy balances on non-reacting systems. (Fall 2014)Developed/taught second semester Chemical Engineering course: "Chemical Process Systems" (also known as Introduction to Chemical Engineering Analysis and Computations). Covered topics such as steady-state energy balances on reactive systems; mathematical & computational tools for solving Chemical Engineering problems, including advanced spreadsheet methods and numerical methods for solution of multi-variable non-linear algebraic equations as well as for solution of material & energy balance problems; use of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) in Microsoft Excel to create user forms & to perform simple programming, plus application of this programming to Chemical Engineering problems; and finally, material & energy balance calculations on transient systems. (Spring 2015)

Wilmington, De, Us

Senior Process Engineer, Solid-State Polymerization Process, 2000 – 2002. (DuPont Polyester Technologies)(Site/business acquired by DAK Americas, Aug. 2001)• Process/process technology owner for PET Solid-State Polymerization (SSP) Process and product (beginning 1/2001), including ensuring production performance to operating plan, maximizing grade1 during product transitions, troubleshooting on process & product issues, process optimization, planning and execution for achieving higher production rates and yields, identifying and leading process improvement for improved quality, rates, yields, costs, etc,, • Led plant retrofit for increased capacity (in SSP process).• Led Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) on multiple process and product issues in SSP.• Participated in Six Sigma Team for improvements in polymer filter life on continuous melt-phase polymerization line; applied Six Sigma methodology to this and other projects.

Kingsport, Tennessee, Us

• Led commercialization (as Project Manager & Contributor) of Eastman's first Invisible Ink product, which included process & product development, intellectual property work (patent application filed), scale-up, commercialization through multiple manufacturing divisions, and close interaction with other organizations such as Business/Marketing & Health/Safety/Regulatory. Member of Product Launch Team.• New Product Development using Stage-Gate Process.• Project Management: trained under formal Eastman Project Manager Network (internal and external project management courses) • Polymer process model development, in AspenTech's Polymer Plus, including polyester melt-phase kinetic model development and thermodynamics, and including data collection for model validation from laboratory experimental work and pilot plant & commercial process data collection.• Polymer process modeling, with application to process capacity increases, process retrofits, process feasibility, and process optimization, at multiple sites.• Polymer process development through Pilot Plants (several scales)• Engineering economics to support various Research & pre-commercialization projects.Company Division: Polymers Technology - Polymer Process Technology Research Laboratory.

Kingsport, Tennessee, Us

• Polymer process model development, including polyester melt-phase kinetic model development and thermodynamics, and including data collection for model validation from laboratory experimental work and pilot plant & commercial process data collection.• Polymer process modeling, with application to process capacity increases, process retrofits, process feasibility, and process optimization, at multiple sites.• Polymer process development through Pilot Plants (several scales)• Engineering economics to support various Research & pre-commercialization projects.Company Division: Polymers Technology - Polymer Process Technology Research Laboratory.

Kingsport, Tennessee, Us

• Polymer process model development, including polyester melt-phase kinetic model development and thermodynamics, and including data collection for model validation from laboratory experimental work and pilot plant & commercial process data collection.• Polymer process modeling, with application to process capacity increases, process retrofits, process feasibility, and process optimization, at multiple sites.• Polymer process development through Pilot Plants (several scales)• Engineering economics to support various Research & pre-commercialization projects.Company Division: Polymers Technology - Polymer Process Technology Research Laboratory.

Blacksburg, Va, Us

Graduate Research Assistant, PhD, 1987-1991• Developed vibrated-bed microreactor for simulating gas-solid contacting typical of turbulant catalytic fluid-bed reactors. Designed to be useful in assessing sensitivity of new solid-catalyzed gas-phase reaction to gas backmixing to aid in reactor selection and fluid-bed scale-up. Built several reactor models. Characterized gas-dispersion via gas tracer experiments. Programmed all data acquisition and signal processing routines (in C and assembly language). • Developed mathematical model (FORTRAN; method-of-lines; IMSL) of vibrated beds of particulate solids to aid in fundamental research study in a separate group research project. Model involved a non-trivial numerical solution of a partial differential equation with time-varying boundary condition.Unit Ops Lab Instructor & Graduate Teaching Assistant/Lecturer, 1984-1991• Lecturer/Instructor on topics related to math modeling (numerical solution of ODEs & PDEs & reactor models), kinetics & reactor design, solution thermodynamics (UNIFAC), and ASPEN process modeling.Math Modeling Consultant/Programmer, 1990-1991• Math model of air-duct dispersion problem using PDETWO program; computer programming (in C) for processing of experimental data from electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy.Eastman Kodak Fellowship, MSChE, 1985-1986• Identified and evaluated several solution thermodynamic (activity coefficient) models for modeling phase behavior exhibited by aqueous-polymer two-phase systems.

Wilmington, De, Us

Member of plant R&D groups supporting Dacron(TM) PET Polyester Fiber Manufacturing Plant.R&D Chemical Engineer, 1984• Polymer process modeling applied to improved reactor performance (reduced fouling).• R&D support for manufacturing, primarily related to continuous polymerization process and analytical results related to process tests.Co-operative Education Student (during BSChE at NCSU), 1980-1983 • Polymer process modeling applied to improved polymer reactor performance (reduced fouling).• Various projects related to process and product improvements in continuous filament yarn process.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D., '92), Master Of Science (M.S., '86), Chemical Engineering

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Chemical Engineering

Education record