Plastics Pioneers Association Adds Four to Membership Roster

The Plastics Pioneers Association (PPA), McHenry, Ill., this month announced that four new members have been selected to join the organization.

The new inductees, announced at the group’s spring meeting this month in Florida, are:

Aline Alroy: Alroy earned a CPA with a BA from Princeton University and an MBA from Rutgers University. Since 1986, she has worked for High-Technology Corp., Hackensack, N.J., a manufacturer of polymer filtration systems, in various sales and marketing positions. She is currently the company’s vice president of sales.

Alroy has served as a member and an executive member of the SPI Equipment Council, as well the NPE 2012 and 2015 Operations Committee. On the community level, she is co-founder and secretary/treasurer of the Princeton Alumni Viewpoints, a not-for-profit organization that helps sponsor a student run magazine on campus, brings outside lecturers to campus and supports the activities of the Witherspoon Society.

John Jungjohann: After he completed his BS degree in Business Administration from  Rochester Institute of Technology,  Jungjohann began his career in plastics in 1990 as regional salesman for Huntsman Chemical, and after several promotions he moved on to the Hinds Company as president in 1996. In 2002 Jungjohann joined Entec Resins as business director, then went on to the M. Holland Company as vice president of sourcing and logistics in 2006.  After a brief period as vice president of Nexus Resin Group, Jungjohann took a role with Flow Polymers as global plastics business director in 2010.  In 2012 he accepted a position at PolyOne in Cleveland as director of supply and since 2014 has been vice president of commercial strategy at PRP Recycling.

Through his career Jungjohann has served on several committees in the APR (the Association of Plastics Recyclers), NAPCOR (the National Association of PET Container Resources), SPI and SPE. 

Kenneth Pawlak: Pawlak earned a BSE in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Masters’ Degree in Business Administration and Management from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management along with being a Certified Plastics Technologist with SPE.

He began his career in 1988 as a senior principal engineer at Baxter Healthcare and moved on to AKSYS in 1994 taking a role as manager of plastics engineering.  In 2002 Pawlak started his own consulting company, Pawlak Plastics Inc., advising clients in plastics, medical, commercial and industrial product design, development and root cause failure analysis.  In 2010 he joined Natus Medical Inc. as plastics & mechanical engineering manager, a position he still holds.

Pawlak is the holder of 23 patents (with three patents pending). He’s been involved in more than 35 successful new product launches, recognized twice by R&D Magazine with the R&D Top 100 award, and awarded the “Innovator of the Year” by Injection Molding Magazine.  He has also published an article for Product Design and Development Magazine and published a paper for the SOLIDWORKS World 2015 Conference.

Pawlak has been a member of SPE since 1974 and has served as chairman of both the Product Design & Development Division and the Rotational Molding Division.

Dr. Maureen Steinwall: Dr. Steinwall received a BS in Accounting from Iowa State University, a Bachelors’ in Business Education and an MBA in Operations Management from the University of Minnesota, an OPM from Harvard Business School and a PhD in Organizational Management and Leadership from Capella University.

Her career in business began in 1975 as an independent CPA. She then joined the Micro-Switch, div. of Honeywell Inc. in 1981, and in 1983 became owner and president of Steinwall Inc., Coon Rapids, Minn., a full-service injection molding and tooling company.

Dr. Steinwall currently serves on the boards of Fabri-Kal Corp., Mercy Unity Hospital Foundation, and the SPI. She is also active on the boards of 23 other schools, universities, local business and chambers of commerce. 

Throughout her career she has been recognized with multiple awards from industry groups, universities and government agencies. She was inducted in the Plastic Industry’s Hall of Fame in 2015, and the Minnesota Women Business Owner’s Hall of Fame. She has also been honored as U.S. Plastic Processor of the Year from SPI and Plastics News, and received the Excellence in Employee Training Award and the Excellence in Engineering Award from SPI.

Founded in 1944, the PPA is a non-profit organization with a roster of more than 200 members, all of whom have at least 25 years of experience in plastics. The group’s primary purpose is to award scholarships to students seeking a career in plastics, to provide grants to various plastics educational programs, and to preserve the history of the industry.