Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. has announced a special partnership with the M.F. Cachat Company of Lakewood, Ohio, to supply 5-lb packages of its Ciba® MICROLITH® pigment preparations and Ciba® ORASOL® dyes to customers within the United States.

The Cleveland Coatings Society (CCS) will hold its 49th annual technical symposium on waterborne and innovate coatings on May 23-24, 2006. Sink or Swim 2006 will take place at the University of Akron in conjunction with the Department of Polymer Engineering.

Specialty Coating Systems, Inc. (SCS), a former business unit of Cookson Group plc headquartered in Indianapolis, has been acquired by Bunker Hill Capital, L.P. (BHC).

CHEVY CHASE, Md. - RadTech, the association for ultraviolet (UV) and electron beam (EB) processes, will feature the technology's enabling power for manufacturers at e/5 2006, the world's largest UV and EB technology exposition and conference, April 24-26, 2006, at McCormick Place in Chicago.

The sale of the assets of Magruder Color to Pochteca Color Company LLC has been completed. Pochteca Color has changed its name to Magruder Color, LLC.

Hexion Specialty Chemicals, Inc., the world's largest producer of thermoset resins, has signed a definitive agreement to purchase the global wax compounds business of Rohm and Haas Company. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Closing is subject to governmental approvals.

Less than five months after the DuPont titanium dioxide manufacturing plant near Delisle, Miss., suffered a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina, the company announced on January 25, 2006, that manufacturing operations have resumed at the site.

Demand for wood-protection coatings and preservatives is forecast to increase 2.7 percent per year to $3.0 billion in 2009, despite a challenging market environment. Continued weakness in the key siding market is prompting coatings manufacturers to place greater emphasis on growing applications such as cabinets and flooring. In addition, demand will benefit from upgrading, steady production of pressure-treated lumber, and solid levels of construction-related repair and improvement spending.

Spartan Environmental Technologies, a distributor and manufacturer of chemical oxidation and disinfection equipment, has appointed Applied Process Equipment, Inc., as its representative for the states of Arizona and New Mexico.

The Federation of Societies for Coatings Technology has announced the results of the election of members to its board of directors. In all, 1,098 ballots, representing over 25% of the membership, were submitted.