Milwaukee SPE: Special Features

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Lasting Impressions
By: Don Klein

Few events in one’s career leave lasting impressions. ANTEC 2003 is one special milestone for me. Being an SPE member since 1971, I’ve had the desire to attend an ANTEC for a long time. However, no one influential in my career, put a high value on ANTEC attendance. Thanks to our Past President Wayne Vander Zanden and all the efforts from numerous people within the Milwaukee SPE, I attended the 2003 ANTEC in Nashville to accept the STAR award on behalf of the Section. This was my first attendance of the SPE’s premiere Annual Technical Conference (ANTEC). Having attending this ANTEC, I now see a great opportunity that I missed over the years. If you’re a technical person, with a passion for plastics, ANTEC will fuel your emotions; it did for me.

First of all, ANTEC made me feel proud to accept the STAR Award on behalf of the section. I documented the work that went into applying for the STAR Award and gained a greater appreciation of the homogeneous team that we have in Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Section has a reputation of being a leader which was echoed several times when introducing myself to new acquaintances.
Being introduced to new ANTEC acquaintances, will help me form new networking possibilities. Meeting a vast variety of plastics technical expertise associates, along with key SPE International officers, could be a humbling experience. Meeting such a variety of people left me with a new sense of being connected to the plastics network. I was able to speak to these new acquaintances one-on-one.

The depth of plastics knowledge presented by this collage of plastics technical experts was overwhelming. It was difficult to make the tough choices of which technical conference session I should attend. Frequently, I found myself dividing my time between two great and timely plastics topics.

I was extremely impressed by the desire and willingness of SPE Fellows and Award Recipients to freely talk and mingle with ANTEC attendees of all levels. Experiences ranged from a technical discussion by a gentleman that developed platable ABS in the ‘60s to a casual conversation with Glen Beal. Glen Beal, the 2003 SPE International Award Winner, described to me his personal antique plastics product collection the evening before he delivered his plenary speech “The Importance of Plastic Product Design.”

ANTEC is the only place that I know of where you can experience such a collections of emotions driven by our field of choice, plastics. What I did learn from missing all those ANTECs over the years is that it’s never too late to begin attending. I now think of ANTEC as a resource of a wealth of current plastics technical information while providing valuable networking possibilities If you enjoy the technical aspects of plastics, ANTEC is the place to go. Hope to see you next May at ANTEC 2004 in Chicago.

2004
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