Lehigh Technologies, a leading specialty materials company that produces micronized rubber powders (MRP), today announced that it has bolstered its best-in-class research and development capabilities with the appointment of Rick Speas as Technical Manager for Polyurethanes (PU). Speas, a 30-year industry veteran, will lead the customer-facing polyurethane application development team at Lehigh’s Application and Development Center (ADC).
“The global polyurethane market is expected to grow significantly over the next five years, and Lehigh’s MRP is ideally suited to meet the industry’s needs,” said Alan Barton, CEO of Lehigh Technologies. “More than 70 million PU components have already been manufactured using Lehigh’s MRP, and this latest addition to the technical team enables us to drive further adoption of lower cost, sustainable, high-performance MRPs into these applications.”
Speas joins the company with extensive experience developing PU systems for a range of applications. Previously, he worked as technical director at some of the world’s largest PU manufacturers, including Tempur-Sealy, Rubberlite, Uniroyal and Foamex. In addition to leading the polyurethane application development team at Lehigh, Speas will be responsible for the construction and operation of Lehigh’s polyurethane laboratory.
“Having previously served as a Lehigh customer, I’m very familiar with MRPs and their benefits for polyurethane applications,” said Speas.”I’m looking forward to joining the ADC team, where I can help reinforce peer-level technical relationships with major component producers and explore opportunities to further advance this key market segment.”
Initially, Lehigh will focus on developing PU applications for the automotive, flooring and apparel industries. This hire follows an ADC expansion in January 2014, when Lehigh added Chad Jasiunas as Technical Manager for Functional Materials and invested in new mixing and analytical equipment.
Lehigh’s proprietary MRPs lower costs, increase the sustainability profile of end products and deliver performance without sacrificing the reliability and performance offered by traditional raw materials.