Coatings World - April 2012

PPG Platinum Distributor program, and Greg Benckart, vice president, automotive refinish USCA, made the presentation.

Bumgarner attended the conference with his brothers Glenn, Curtis, and Keith—all vice presidents of Ohio Auto Kolor—and his parents Charles and Ann Bumgarner, founders of the company. Other key business members were also on hand.

“We were all surprised and excited to
find out we were Platinum Distributor of
the Year,” said Bumgarner upon accepting
the award. “We’re celebrating our fiftieth
anniversary this year so we’ve been focus-
ing on that. This award is something we
will take great pride in, and I’m glad we—
especially my mom and dad—were all
here to accept it. And, of course, this
honor belongs to everyone at our com-
pany. Thank you, PPG.”
Ohio Auto Kolor opened in 1962 in
Dayton, Ohio, as a branch outlet of an-
other local distributor. Charles Bumgarner
managed the store with the help of two
employees, one of whom—Paul Snyder—
is still working at the company’s Spring-
field, Ohio, location. Charles bought the
business in 1975, purchased several other
stores in the area over the next few years,
and successfully expanded the enterprise.
The company became a single-line PPG
distributor in 1962 and has consistently
participated in key Platinum initiatives. In
addition, Gary Bumgarner was active in
the development of the Platinum Distrib-
utor program. Today, Ohio Auto Kolor
has eight locations and 65 employees
across central Ohio.

Tnemec’s S. W.A. T. protocol receives corrosion innovation award

Tnemec Company, Inc., a manufacturer of high-performance protective coatings, has received an award for its Severe Wastewater Analysis Test, or S.W.A. T. The test was nominated in September 2011 and then chosen as the recipient of the first Readers’ Choice Corrosion Innovation of the Year Award, presented by Materials Performance magazine.

Materials Performance, published by NACE International, invited the world-

wide corrosion industry, including individuals, companies, organizations, and governments, to submit nominations for the debut of the award. Tnemec’s S.W.A.T. was among 64 innovations nominated from 17 countries. The nominations represented advances in coatings and linings, cathodic protection, materials and design, instrumentation, testing, integrity assessment, chemical treatments and other corrosion prevention and mitigation technologies. MP readers were asked to cast votes for those they felt were the top 10 nominations in January 2012.

The top 10 innovations were announced by NACE International president Oliver Moghissi at Corrosion 2012, NACE International’s annual corrosion conference and exposition, held in Salt Lake City, Utah, from March 12-15. Mark Thomas, vice-president of marketing, accepted the award presented to S. W.A. T. on behalf of Tnemec.

“This peer recognition validates
S. W.A. T. as an innovative testing protocol
for evaluating protective coatings and lin-
ings for severe wastewater exposures”
said Vaughn O’Dea, director of sales,
water and wastewater treatment.
“S.W.A.T. offers the wastewater industry
a mechanism for determining the suitabil-
ity of protective coatings and linings for
these severe exposures.”
The laboratory test method, known
fully as The Standard Practice for Rapid
Evaluation of Coatings and Linings by Se-
vere Wastewater Analysis Test (S. W.A. T.),
simulates a severe wastewater headspace
condition. Coated steel and concrete sam-
ples are wetted with a corrosive solution
and then exposed to sewer gases, includ-
ing hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon diox-
ide (CO2), and methane (CH4), found as
being responsible for altering barrier
properties of protective coatings and lin-
ings. The test is performed under con-
trolled conditions in an airtight chamber
with a constant temperature of 150 de-
grees Fahrenheit where specimens are im-
mersed into the aqueous solutions three
times daily for a period of 15 minutes,
then exposed to the sewer gas the balance
of the time. The cyclic exposure continues
for a period of 28 days.

PPG Aerospace Materials completes 10 years of manufacturing safety at its Suzhou plant

PPG Industries celebrated the 10th anniversary of PPG Aerospace Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd. Government officials from Suzhou New District, PPG Aerospace executives and Suzhou plant employees participated in a ceremony to recognize the anniversary and a decade of manufacturing safety at the plant.

PPG Aerospace Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd. was established in March 2002 to meet the needs of major aerospace original equipment manufacturers as well as the rapidly growing Asia/Pacific maintenance (MRO) market. It is one of 16 global Application Support Centers for PPG Aerospace.

“Over the past decade, ASC-Suzhou
has expanded its product portfolio and
gradually localized its production of aero-
space materials in China and other coun-
tries in the Asia/Pacific region, significantly
fueling the growth of the regional aero-
space manufacturing industry,” said Paul
Bowman, PPG general manager, aerospace
materials, Asia/Pacific. “Additionally,
achieving a decade of manufacturing
safety is notable, particularly for a chemi-
cal company. We share the best practices
that lead to success here in Suzhou with
PPG plants all around the world.”
PPG Aerospace Materials (Suzhou) Co.
Ltd. has improved its quality management
system through its first 10 years, gaining
qualification from both Boeing and Airbus.
PPG also was the first chemical company
approved by the Civil Aviation Administra-
tion of China (CAAC) to design and man-
ufacture dozens of coating products and
other aerospace materials. To meet growing
demand in the Asia/Pacific region, ASC-
Suzhou’s windshield framing repair service
was added to offer customers regional win-
dow assembly overhaul and repair, and
PPG established PPG Aerospace Materials
(Tianjin) Co. Ltd. in the Tianjin Airport
Economic Area in 2010.