Board Of Governors

Gene Williams

Gene Williams is President of the Optima Chemical Group, LLC, a global supplier of specialty chemicals, toll services and custom manufacturing located in Douglas, GA.

Prior to being named President of the Optima Chemical Group in 2001, Mr. Williams served as the company’s operations manager. He was responsible for completing plant construction, staffing and startup on new manufacturing operations. His responsibilities also include all day-to-day operations with the company, excluding R&D.

Michael Ott

Michael Ott is the owner and operator of Polysciences, Inc., which is a diversified manufacturer of chemicals for the research, medical device, electronic and diagnostic markets. Polysciences produces specialty monomers and polymers, microspheres, histology and microscopy reagents, and have a wide range of materials science applications.

Kate Donahue

Kate Donahue is President and CEO of Hampford Research, Inc., which is a family owned, custom chemical manufacturing firm. It specializes in hi-purity specialty chemicals used in the electronics, dental, cosmetics, engineered materials and printing/lithography industries, and is located in Stratford, CT.

Dr. Keith Silverman

Dr. Keith Silverman is Vice President of Global Operations, Quality and Environment, Health, Safety (EHS) at Ashland LLC. Keith joined Ashland in June 2012 as Vice President of EHS and Product Regulatory. Prior to joining Ashland, he spent twenty-three years in the pharmaceutical industry with Merck & Co., Inc. in a series of roles spanning Research and Development to EHS. Keith has international experience in incident management and emergency response and has provided training and exercises globally.

Steel Hutchinson

Steel Hutchinson has been active on various community and industry boards, serving as the President of the McKinley Avenue Employers Association (MAEA) in Columbus, Ohio, and President of the Chemicals and Specialties Management Council (CSMC, a group of privately owned chemical businesses). Heiand is currently the Past Chairman of the Board of Governors for the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) in Washington D.C., and is also serving on the Finance Committee for the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio.

Paul Ameis

Paul Ameis currently serves as General Manager at VanDeMark Chemical in Lockport, NY. He is responsible for the leadership of all plant operations, material planning, plant engineering, and process engineering. During his tenure at VanDeMark, Mr. Ameis has played an instrumental role in the development of many of the company’s proprietary processes and products, as well as the company’s continuous improvement initiatives throughout its manufacturing operations.

Qamar Bhatia

Qamar Bhatia is President of Monument Chemical. Qamar is responsible
for Monument’s overall growth strategy, building and strengthening
key customer relationships, our HSE journey, and day-to-day
operations.

Qamar brings a wealth of experience and expertise to our
team. He joins us from Honeywell International, where he
spent the last 14 years. In his most recent role, he served
as President of Specialty Products, with revenues of $1.5
billion. He has also held strategy and leadership roles at
McKinsey & Company, Inc. and General Electric.

Qamar holds a doctoral degree in Chemical Engineering from
Princeton University, and MBA in Administration from State
University of New York.

Joe Beatty

Joe Beatty is the CEO of FAR Chemical, having joined the firm in early 2015. Prior to joining FAR Chemical, Mr. Beatty held a variety of executive management, sales, and operations positions in the specialty chemical industry. Most recently, he served as President, CEO, & Director of Xolve Inc., and prior to that he served as ColorMatrix Corporation’s Managing Director of North America.

Before joining ColorMatrix, Mr. Beatty was Vice President of North America for MetoKote Corporation and has held senior management positions with Hexion Specialty Chemicals and its predecessor companies (McWhorter Technologies, Eastman Chemical and Resolution Specialty Materials) including Vice President, Coating Resins – Americas; Global Business Director – Coatings; and Business Director, Specialty Resins and Monomers. He began his career in the Industrial Water Treatment industry with WR Grace – Dearborn Division, ultimately being named Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

Mara Gliozzi

Mara Gliozzi has worked in the chemical industry for 35 years, all with McGean, a specialty chemical manufacturer near Cleveland, OH, that employees almost 100 people. She started as a summer intern and stayed with the company from that point on.

During those years, the family-owned organization has gone through several iterations, but has always valued its employees and worked diligently to provide a supportive work environment that encourages success.

Throughout her career at McGean, Gliozzi has worked in a variety of jobs, from sales and marketing to purchasing and customer service. Ms. Gliozzi is actively involved in SOCMA, taking advantage of advocacy, educational and networking opportunities, including the Washington Fly-In, Annual Dinner and Committee Week, among others.

Ron Lehman

Ron Lehman is Senior Vice President at Novecare, a global business unit of Solvay, an international chemical group, based in Princeton, N.J., USA.

He joined Solvay in 2014 and now serves as Vice President & North America Zone General Manager of Novecare. Solvay Novecare is an industry leader in core and specialty surfactants, natural and synthetic polymers, performance concentrates and amine derivatives. Solvay provides added-value products and high-performance solutions to diversified markets, including health, personal and home care; agricultural specialties; coatings; energy and other industrial markets.