Rubber and Plastic News Digital Edition

May 19, 2008

Firestone
to open air
springs site

By Bruce Meyer

Rubber & Plastics News Staff

INDIANAPOLIS—Firestone Industrial Products Co. L.L.C. plans to open an air springs production facility in Turrialba, Costa Rica, to serve growing areas in the region.

Located between San Jose and the port of Limon, the plant will allow the firm to better support “emerging international markets in a cost-effective manner,” said Mike Cerio, president of Firestone Industrial Products, a subsidiary of Bridgestone Firestone Diversified Products.

The firm has signed a lease on a former Conair facility in Turrialba and at the start will employ 100 people and occupy about 125,000 square feet. It did not release investment or initial capacity figures.

One reason Firestone Industrial Products chose Costa Rica for the factory was because Bridgestone Americas Holding Inc. operates a tire plant in the nation, a facility that has been in place since 1967.

Officials from the tire business helped Firestone Industrial Products through the process, including such things as gauging the availability of labor and dealing with governmental agencies in the permitting process.

“They were very instrumental in assisting us in getting this off the ground,”

See Firestone, page 23

The path

less taken

Charles Goodyear Medalist Kennedy

reflects on exceptional life in rubber

By Edward Noga

Rubber & Plastics News Staff

DEARBORN, Mich.—The impact one person can have on science,

technology, education and individuals is illustrated by the life of Joseph P. Kennedy.

Consider the “what ifs.”

What if the communists didn’t throw him out of college in his native Hungary because of his “bourgeoisie” background?

What if he hadn’t scaled barbed-wire fences to escape into Austria and then start from scratch his nearly completed education as a chemist?

What if he had stayed in industry, rather than move to academia, where he could devote years, rather than months, to fundamental science projects?

If the twists and turns of the 79-year life of this year’s Charles Goodyear Medalist had been different, who knows if Boston Scientific’s Taxus drug-eluting cardiovascular stent system would be saving millions of lives?

It was Kennedy, the distinguished professor of polymer science and chemistry at the University of Akron, and his team that invented the polymer component of the device that prevents coronary artery tissue from reclogging the stent.

Then there’s the artificial pancreas he is working on today that he expects will be commercially viable in the near future. And the

See Kennedy, page 23

Solideal to open urethane goods plant in Sri Lanka

5,000-sq.-ft. facility to produce load wheels and casters

By Mike McNulty
Rubber & Plastics News Staff

SAN ANTONIO—Solideal International S.A. soon will open its first polyurethane products plant in Sri Lanka after achieving success making urethane goods in the U.S.

The company is adding a 5,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility in the country to produce urethane load wheels and casters, which will expand its offerings in Asia and the U.S. Financial details of the project were not disclosed.

Currently the company makes rubber tires, primarily for the industrial market, in Sri Lanka, where it employs about 10,000. The firm’s polyurethane goods, mainly press-on tires and special items, are produced at its only plant in Muscle Shoals, Ala., operated by U.S. subsidiary Solideal U.S.A. Inc., headquartered in Charlotte, N.C.

Jack Straub, general manager and production manager at the U.S. facility and a long-time urethane industry veteran, will be in charge of setting up the factory and ensuring it’s

completely operational.

He’ll fly to Sri Lanka some time in June to begin work on the plant and remain there supervising the layout for three or four weeks. Straub also will train employees on the factory’s machinery.

“Then I’ll probably go back again at least once more,” he said.

It will be the sixth polyurethane production facility he’s set up in his 43-year career in the business, he noted at the Polyurethane Manufacturers Association an-

nual meeting, held May 4-7 in San Antonio. “And it will probably be the last plant I set up,” he said.

Solideal purchased a used automatic processing control machine in the U.S. recently that Straub stripped down and re-built, he said. The machine is being shipped to Sri Lanka where he will oversee its installation along with other equipment.