John "Jack" Ashcom has joined Hoover Materials Handling Group Inc. as manager of the company's Dry Material Handling product line. He will work with Hoover's manufacturer's-representative network to provide sales and technical service to customers. Ashcom has 30 years of experience in sales, marketing and management in the material-handling and capital-equipment industry, and was most recently National Sales manager with Versa Conveyor/Tomkins Industries.
Dow Emulsion Polymers, a supplier of latex-based materials for paper coatings, named Donna Babcock Marketing executive and Murat Orhon senior Marketing manager for the company's North American Coated-Paper business. The Emulsion Polymers business is a supplier of latex, solid plastic pigments and rheology-control products used in coatings for fine papers, publication papers and coated paperboard for packaging.
Tim Ferguson has joined Plasticolors Inc. as a Sales engineer, with responsibility for sales accounts in northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania. Ferguson has held account-manager and technical-sales positions with chemicals and coatings companies over the past 25 years. The company is a supplier of pigment and chemical dispersions.
BASF named Patrick M. Prevost executive vice president of BASF Corp. and president of the company's chemicals businesses in North America. Prevost assumes responsibility for BASF's Petrochemicals, Performance Chemicals, Intermediates, Inorganics, Functional Polymers and Superabsorbents businesses in North America and management responsibility for BASF's Canadian operations. Prevost held a variety of positions during a 21-year career with Amoco Chemical Co. and BP Chemicals, and was most recently vice president, Strategy Development. He previously held positions in technical service, marketing and general management, including vice president, Chemical Intermediates, for Amoco Europe; vice president, Global Business Management; and chief executive of the Terephthalic Acid (PTA) business with responsibility for the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The Dow Chemical Co.'s board of directors elected Andrew N. Liveris, Business Group president for Performance Chemicals, to the positions of company president and chief operating officer. William S. Stavropoulos resigned as Dow's president but remains chairman and CEO. During a 27-year career with Dow, Liveris has held manufacturing, sales, marketing, new-business development and management positions.
Klaus Schulte has joined BYK-Chemie, Wesel, Germany, as End-Use manager for the company's Additives for Wood and Furniture Coatings segment. Schulte was formerly responsible for sales and marketing of titanium-dioxide and barium-sulfate specialties with Sachtleben Chemie. He is the author of numerous technical articles and has delivered lectures at international technical conferences, including a presentation on the use of nanofine TiO2 as an inorganic UV absorber in wood-protection systems.
Netzsch Inc.'s Grinding and Dispersing Division named Mark Seale South Central Regional Sales manager, with responsibility for sales in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Seale was formerly Project manager with Ogden Environmental and Energy Services Co. Inc., an environmental consulting firm, and also was a manufacturer's representative with Ran-Le and Associates, a bulk material handling, processing, batching and air-pollution-control company.
CPS Color has named Stefan Schröer-Elpers vice president of the company's worldwide Customer Support activities. Schröer-Elpers has held engineering, sales and management positions with coatings-manufacturing companies in Germany.
