A very experienced,  senior  business leader,  having served on the Board of Directors of a number of world leading multi-national plastics and chemical companies responsible for the  overall business performance, corporate strategy and increased shareholder value.    Tom Bohrer with a strong technical background, served as Group President, Advanced Materials, Hoechst-Celanese, and was responsible for the strategy and growth of Celanese Plastics into a world leading supplier of high performance plastic materials.  A company, (presently the Ticona division of Celanese AG) with a world class reputation for innovation,  a  success record for the introduction of many diverse new product lines that contributed strongly to the growth and profitability of the organisation.

Tom Bohrer, with world-wide international board level management experience,  is skilled at recognising new business opportunities that can be gained through  either  joint venture agreements or via  acquisition, or the licensing of proprietary technology, working with other business partners.

T Bohrer, has served as Bereichsleiter, Technische Kuntstoffe, Hoescht AG, Germany. Chairman of the Board, Shell Polypropylene Company.  Board Member,  Polyplastics Company Ltd, Japan and President and COO, International Specialty Products.

Today, Tom Bohrer is President of Tom Bohrer Consulting providing experience, leadership, expertise and sound advice to the Chemicals, Plastics, Fibers and Related Industries and sits as a Board Member on a number of USA companies .

Dr MEL DRUIN

A leader in plastics research and development for the past 35 years, with fourteen issued. US patents in chemicals, plastic films, engineering resins and composites, and the author of 35 papers and conference presentations in plastic materials and packaging.

His work in polymer development at Celanese was at the forefront of PET polymer commercialization for carbonated beverage bottles during the early 1980s. Dr. Druin was the principle inventor of Celgard Microporous films, now commercial with sales exceeding $100 MM, used for specialty medical devices and for high-energy battery systems. He was responsible for the basic R & D and scale-up to a semi-works operation for manufacturing Celgard for market and application development. He also invented and scaled-up Celanese’s manufacturing process for producing graphite fibers. The commercial business was subsequently sold to BASF for $165 million in 1984.

At Campbell Soup Company, Dr. Druin served as an Officer and Corporate Vice President responsible for the company’s worldwide packaging R & D organization. He developed the corporate packaging strategy and positioned Campbell as a leader in developing and commercializing new convenience packaging for microwavable food applications. He developed the first hot fill plastic bottles for V-8 Vegetable Juice, the dual ovenable plastic tray for Swanson frozen dinners, the first shelf stable retortable plastic soup bowl with an easy open lid, and numerous other plastic packages. He directed the development and conversion from three-piece steel food cans to self-manufacturing of two-piece cans at Campbell. Dr. Druin also directed the design and commercialization of Campbell’s first CPET plastic food tray operation. This facility was the largest scale CPET tray line in the world, producing 125 million dual ovenable trays for Campbell’s Swanson Frozen Food Division.

After leaving Campbell Soup, he started his own company PolyPlas Development, L.L.C. a contract plastics R & D company specializing in plastics packaging and advanced plastic materials.

He created the Center for Processing of Plastic Packaging at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The Center was the first development facility in the US to focus on the processing and manufacturing of plastic packaging and has a broad range of capabilities including extrusion, injection molding , co-extrusion, thermoforming and foaming of plastics.

Dr. Druin currently also serves as the Director of Development for the Polymer Processing Institute at NJIT.  

He earned a PHD in Chemical Engineering from NJIT.

He served on the Board of trustees of NJIT, and is past Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Plastics Institute of America.   He was awarded the NJIT Trustee Award, and the NJIT Edward F. Weston Medal for Distinguished Professional Achievement by an Alumnus. He was inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Packaging Education Forum’s Packaging Hall of Fame in 2001

On Joining Celanese was initially responsible for setting up the European Technical Service and Market Development Facility.   Then served as the technical, then the sales and finally, Business Director for the American Celanese Corporation, based in London, responsible for the European sales, local manufacturing  and marketing of a wide range of high performance engineering plastic materials ($90mm/annum), and achieving market leadership throughout Europe.   From 1979 to 1983 worked at the Celanese corporate headquarters USA in a senior marketing position.  End user markets covered included:- Automotive, Appliances, Utilities, Electrical/Electronics, Medical and Packaging.