2009 TAPPI EPE Conference Report (November 12, 2009)
Elvis, Beale Street, Ole Man River and 491 EPE registrants had one thing in common last month: They were all part of my home town, Memphis, Tennessee.
Memphis hosted TAPPI's 2009 Engineering, Pulping, and Environmental Conference in October. My hat goes off to all of the various committee members, speakers, session leaders, sponsors, exhibitors, contractors, and TAPPI staff who worked as a team to bring us a great EPE again this year. Several "positives" were seen, felt and heard at this year's conference. One of these was our keynote speaker, NewPage CEO Rick Willett. From Rick's positive, "can-do attitude" talk about our industry to the presence of the many TAPPI student chapter members who attended, it is clear we can look forward to a bright future in our industry. TAPPI's official Board Representatives for EPE were Nicki Slusser of International Paper and Norman Marsolan of IPST.
As always, we could not have a successful conference without our dedicated Board of Directors, TAPPI members, our sponsors, advertisers and exhibitors. These 25 companies helped directly support this year's EPE:
- Airstream
- ALGAS FTS Norway
- Andritz
- Applus RTD
- ASD, Inc.
- Babcock & Wilcox
- Buckman
- Chemstone
- Comer S.p.A.
- EnerNOC
- FP Innovations/Paprican
- HPD
- Jack Tyler Engineering
- Lorentzen & Wettre
- Martin Marietta Magnesia Specialties
- NORAM
- Pace Analytical
- Phoenix Process
- Pocono Fabricators
- Schreiber LLC
- Southern Environmental
- Thiele Kaolin Company
- TurboSonic, Inc.
- Vincent Corp.
- Waste Management Upstream
One of the many exhibitors that caught my eye was from my adopted state of Georgia. (
I still have to be careful which team I pull for, by the way!) was
Thiele Kaolin Company, headquartered in Sandersville, GA. For more than 60 years, Thiele Kaolin has been one of the world's leading sources for processed kaolin clay. With facilities in North America and Europe, Thiele mines, processes, blends and delivers a full spectrum of kaolin coating and filler pigments. While in Memphis they were promoting DEKA, a modified kaolin-based deinking reagent for recycled papers. For more information on Thiele, go to
www.thielekaolin.com or contact Cynthia Willcox, Marketing Associate at 478-552-9710.
For more information on TAPPI, please visit us at
www.tappi.org.
Until next time,
Larry Montague
President, TAPPI