2024 Winter/Spring Technical Meeting Speakers
epg 2024 winter/spring technical meeting speakers/Moderators
Mike Sanchez
Mike Sanchez is a technical service engineer within the Fluon+ Melt Processable Compounds group of AGC Chemicals Americas, Inc. and has served in that role for the past six years.
Irene Yurovska
Dr. Irene Yurovska has long experience serving global rubber/tire/polymer industries. After completing education in the Soviet Union, she worked for tire and aerospace industries. Irene moved to US in 1991, she worked for Teknor Apex, Precix, Cabot, SI Group and Himadri. Currently she lives in TX, running her consulting business YIGlobal. Irene is the author of many patents and articles. She is active in ACS Rubber Division and ASTM, being a member of many Committees.
Jesse Thompson
Jesse Thompson serves as senior business economist at the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Thompson, who joined the Bank in 2010, performs research and analysis on issues affecting the Houston and Gulf Coast economy. In particular, he studies issues surrounding area hydrocarbon industries. He also collects information for the Dallas Fed’s Beige Book summary of current economic conditions. He is author of the monthly Energy Indicator and Houston Economic Indicators. He also contributes to the publication Southwest Economy. Thompson earned an MA in economics, with emphasis on empirical microeconomics, and BA in philosophy and economics from the University of Houston.
Buc Slay
Buc Slay is currently the CTO of the Alpine Polytech. He graduated from Texas A&M with degrees in Mech Eng and Material Science. He worked for Halliburton and Weatherford selecting and testing O&G materials. Buc co-founded Alpine, a company that provides high performance testing of materials and equipment used in upstream, midstream, and downstream applications. This involves seal testing in Hydrogen/CO2/H2S, failure analysis, and life estimation. He also participates in ISO, NACE, and API.
Gina Butuc
Gina Butuc is a Technical Development Manager at Nouryon Polymer Specialties. Gina has more than 25 years of experience in the polymer field, from bench chemist to business management. She is the inventor or co-inventor of 7 patents and the author of 8 technical articles and 2 book chapters. Gina holds a PhD in Elastomer Technology Engineering from Univ. of Twente, Netherlands, MSc degree in Organic Chemistry and BSc. in Physical Chemistry from Univ. of Bucharest, Romania.
Dr. Tim Bremner
Since May 2022, Dr. Bremner has served as the Materials Technology Director for Advanced Sealing Technologies, a Michelin High Tech Materials Company. Prior to this, Tim held the position of Materials Technology Director for CDI Energy Products. From 2004 to 2019, Dr. Bremner was the Vice-President of Materials Technology for Hoerbiger Corporation, and during this time additionally acted as Co-Director of the APPEAL Industrial Research Consortium based at Texas A&M University in College Station Texas, working on a variety of industrially sponsored projects related to the use of high-performance engineering polymers across energy sector applications. Dr. Bremner’s 36 years of experience in the world of polymers spans a wide range of fundamental and applied R&D, including product development, polymer process technology development, catalyst development and reaction scale up, process control and modeling, novel characterization methods and instrumentation development.
Dr. Ram Lalgudi
Dr. Ram Lalgudi is an experienced entrepreneur and an expert in synthetic polymer chemistry. His work involves developing new functional materials and demonstrating their applications in fuel cells, batteries, encapsulation, and on-demand release of chemical and biological materials. Ram founded Aries Science & Technology LLC, which aims to revolutionize the microencapsulation industry using sustainable and eco-friendly polymers. He has 44 granted patents in the US and over 25 publications.
Jessica Mattison
Jessica graduated from California Polytechnic of Pomona with a both a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Chemistry. She joined the rubber industry in 2007 as a rubber chemist and shortly thereafter was promoted to Research and Development manager. Over the past 17 years, many formulations developed by Jessica have been in use in Oil and Gas applications with excellent performance and consistency. She has a particular interest and specialty in the development of rapid gas decompression resistant and extrusion resistance formulations.
Brad Daggett
Having joined in 2022, Mr. Daggett is relatively new to XMEK, but not to the Industrial Distribution industry, with his 20+ years of experience with industry leading companies such as Fastenal & Lawson Products. In addition to his many years of service in the industrial distribution industry, Brad also brings extensive manufacturing experience to the table as well, having served in a Global Procurement Manager role with Bray Controls. He has an extensive background in procurement, logistics, and supply chain management, with deep experience in developing and running complex distribution networks.
While comfortable in all aspects of the supply chain, Brad’s true strength lies in developing supplier relationships. He has a deep passion for visiting and working with suppliers in their place of manufacture to develop a true sense of what makes the supplier unique and where their core strengths as a manufacturing partner lie. His innate ability to forge deep and long-lasting relationships with world-class suppliers set him apart as a supply chain executive. He enjoys working with suppliers across the globe, as he has experience visiting factories in more than 25 countries, as well as a stint of living directly in China while on a supply chain improvement project. Under his guidance, XMEK is poised to continue the path of establishing a world class supply chain.
Brad has a BA from Columbia Southern University and holds the following certificates: CSCP (APICS), CPM (ISM)
Ben Farrell
A sales leader in the manufacturing industry since 2017, Ben Farrell’s expertise in B2B and outside sales has led to triple-digit increases in growth for his territories across the United States. He started his sales career in the beverage import/distribution sector, but quickly found that his calling lay in manufacturing specifically for O&G. As a sales rep for Katy Spring & Manufacturing, Ben closed over $1 million in new sales per year, responsible for more than 85% of the company’s new customer revenue in 2018-19 across Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. He increased the company’s sales more than 700% in Fort Worth alone. In 2023, Ben led Houston-based Mustang Seal Solutions’ outside sales team in the procurement of new business as well as the development of multiple new compounds optimized for extrusion resistance. Ben excels at helping customers find solutions for HPHT downhole sealing requirements, compound development specifically HNBR, as well as develop manufacturing processes required to meet the production demands of customers. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Kansas.
