SPE to Honor Achievements of Industry Leaders at ANTEC® 2013

ANTEC 2013 will take place April 22-24 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A. The honors will be presented to the four individuals as part of the Society’s Annual Awards Program at the SPE Celebrates Banquet on Sunday, April 21.
 
International Award: Dr. Benny Freeman
 
The International Award is SPE’s most distinguished award and is presented to honor an individual’s lifetime achievement. Dr. Benny Freeman, the Robert B. Curran Centennial Chair in Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, has made important contributions in engineering, research, service, and education involving polymer membranes for low-energy gas and liquid separations.
 
Dr. Freeman joined the UT Austin faculty in 2002, coming from North Carolina State University. In 2009 he formed the Austin-based startup, Advanced Hydro, Inc. The company delivers high-performance membranes and optimized pre-treatment processes for purifying and reclaiming oil- and gas- related wastewater and the desalination of brackish groundwater or seawater for drinking or industrial use.
 
Dr. Freeman’s research focuses on polymers and polymer-based composite materials, with particular emphasis on the transport of small molecules in polymers. The work finds applications in areas such as gas separations, liquid separations, water purification, and barrier packaging.  His research has been commercialized in both the gas and water purification arenas, contributing water purification filters and energy-efficient membranes for gas separation, such as the purification of natural gas.
 
Dr. Freeman received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.  He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received the American Chemical Society’s Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings.
 
Business Management Award: Tim G. Taylor
 
The award recognizes Mr. Taylor’s achievements in management with Chevron Phillips Chemical Company. He currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Commercial, Marketing, Transportation, and Business Development at Phillips 66. A chemical engineer, Mr. Taylor has more than 35 years experience in the chemical, oil, and gas industries. Before being named to his current role, he served as chief operating officer of Chevron Phillips.
 
Mr.Taylor began his career in the chemical industry with Eastman Chemical in Longview, Texas. He joined the Plastics Division of Phillips Petroleum Company in 1980. From 1990 to 1992 he was president of Phillips Recycling Company in Tulsa, OK. He moved to Houston to manage marketing of the company’s K-Resin. In 1993 Mr. Taylor was named president of Phillips Pipeline Company, and in 1995 he returned to chemicals and plastics, where he held management positions prior to the merger of Phillips Chemical and Chevron Chemical in 2000.  Mr. Taylor received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Kansas State University.
 
Education Award: Dr. Robert Y. Lochhead
 
Dr. Lochhead joined the University of Southern Mississippi as Associate Professor in 1990 and has chaired the Department of Polymer Science since 1993. He serves as Principal Investigator of the NSF-funded “Multinational Partnership to Incite Innovation” and is Director of the School of Polymers and High Performance Materials at USM. Prior to his joining the university, Dr. Lochhead’s industrial career spanned 25 years and included positions with the Nobel Division of I.C.I , Unilever Research, and the Specialty Polymer and Chemicals Division of BFGoodrich.
 
Dr. Lochhead is the author of 300 scientific papers and 22 patents, some for polymers that are used extensively in topical delivery of therapeutics and in cosmetics. His current research is focused on the development of new rapid robotic, combinatorial, and computational methods for Formulation Science and the development of cyberinfrastructure to support global sharing of robotic equipment.  His interests extend to the innovation and global introduction of consumer goods, intellectual property law, and the K-16 science education of under-represented minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged students and their teachers.
 
Research / Engineering Technology Award: Dr. Robert R. Gallucci
 
Dr. Gallucci is Chief Scientist with SABIC Innovative Plastics in Mt. Vernon, IN. In his plastics career of more than 36 years he has developed many new thermoplastic products, often using extruder chemistry and polymer blend compatibilization. He has contributed to cumulative product sales of well over $2-billion and his product technology is practiced around the world. Dr. Gallucci has written 39 technical papers (including 23 ANTEC papers) and contributed to three books. He holds over 100 US patents with 132 different co-inventors, including Dan Fox, the inventor of LexanTM polycarbonate.
 
Dr. Gallucci’s Ph.D. work in Mechanistic Organic Chemistry was done at Princeton University; his undergraduate degree is from The City College of NY. He has been a member of SPE since 1985 and is a registered patent agent. Over the years he has been involved in the recruiting and training of many new technologists and has been a key member of numerous multidisciplinary technology teams.
 
 
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