SPE Presidents Letter 2018 was a big year for the Plastics Industry and for SPE Chicago. The Plastics Industry Association hosted NPE 2018 bringing people from all over the world to Orlando. Education played a big role in all our efforts this year. We sponsored several programs that helped in introducing and educating people about plastics. In cooperation with the SPE Milwaukee, we brought Plastics 101, an entry-level course designed to introduce participants to basic concepts and techniques used throughout the plastics industry. This was a great program for companies to send new employees to learn the basics. We plan on bringing this program and others like it to our members in 2019.
The Annual SPE Chicago Golf Outing was another huge success. I want to thank Matt Johnson for the incredible job in putting it together every year. The golf outing has been crucial in supporting the SPE Chicago’s efforts to promote the Plastics Education by bringing the Plastivan program to Chicago area schools. This year the Plastivan went 4 schools. We asked the students to submit essays on the “Wonders of Plastics”. We will share our top picks with everyone very soon! If you have a school you would like to send the Plastivan to or you would like to sponsor the Plastivan, please email me and we can work together to bring this great program to more students.
On the fun side of things, we again hosted the “Day at the Races” at Arlington Park Race Track. This is one of my favorite events and it is a great way to network in a casual atmosphere. It is a great way to bring customers, suppliers and contacts out to a fantastic venue at a reasonable number. I am hoping that this event becomes as big as our Golf Outing in the coming years.
We hosted 2 plant tours this year. Freudenberg Household Products and Sodick were kind enough to open their doors to us. It is always amazing to see the way everyday products are made and the thought that goes into the processing. We are always looking for companies interested in letting us do a plant tour of their facility, so if you are interested, let us know. The Vinyltec conference was in October and exceeded all our expectations. Kimberly Rush does a great job of putting together an event that had about 215 attendees with 11 Sponsors and 21 Tabletop Sponsors.
We are working on a regular newsletter for our members to stay up to date on events in our area as well as the plastics industry at large. Mercedes Landazuri also posts video updates to our Facebook page. I want to thank the board of the SPE Chicago for all their hard work and the time they volunteer to promote our industry. It is because of those efforts that we can bring great programs and fun events to our membership.
We are looking forward to another great year in 2019 for SPE and all our members.