From employee movement within the organization to new pigment releases, these were some of the biggest headlines of 2022
Employee Movement
Dr. Joel Houmes was promoted to R&D Manager in April 2022 after the retirement of Dr. Geoffrey Peake, who was with Shepherd Color for 33 years. Dr. Houmes has been an R&D Chemist at Shepherd Color since 1996 after earning his PhD in inorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joel has settled into his new role overseeing the R&D laboratory and staff as they work on creating new and optimizing our current pigments. Read the official release here.
In May 2022, Chris Manning was announced as the new President & General Manager of Shepherd Color after the retirement of John Marten. Prior to his appointment to President, he held the Commercial Sales Director role, as well as the Marketing Manager role for the plastics market. Chris has been with Shepherd Color for 20 years and holds a Ph.D. in Colour Chemistry.
To streamline the business development strategies, two new Commercial Segment Leaders were appointed to replace the Commercial Sales Director role. The company promoted Harshal Sanghani to Shepherd Color Commercial Segment Leader and Mike Musick to Shepherd Technologies Commercial Segment Leader.
Harshal Sanghani has been with Shepherd Color since 2003, holding several key roles of Product Manager in Sales and Marketing, Process Development Leader, Process Engineer, and Senior Project Engineer in Operations. Joining Shepherd Color in 2002, Mike Musick held key roles as Lead Development Chemist for the Dynamix® and Starlight® product lines and the polymer enhanced pigments for display products. In 2012 Mike helped initiate the Shepherd Technologies division. Read more here.
Last, but certainly not least, was the hiring of Dr. Joshua Taylor to Regional Sales Manager – APAC in December 2022. Josh is based in Shepherd Color’s Melbourne Office in Cheltenham, and supports customers and distributors in several countries, including India, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. Josh has 20 years of experience in Account Management, Research & Development, Technical Sales and Marketing roles in the coatings industry. We are happy he decided to join our team and is settling into his new role. Read more here.
Pigment Launches
Shepherd Color launched our specialty Cobalt Aluminate Blue 20G599, a red-shade blue with the highest red (a*) value and bluest (-b*) masstone values for the maximum chromaticity possible compared to other blue pigments when matching colors. Anticipated uses are high-performance coatings such as coil & extrusion, automotive, industrial, architectural, powder and other coatings. It can also be used in plastics and engineering polymers, and gel coatings. You can learn more on this pigment here.
In addition, we launched Copper Manganese Chromite Black 10G982. This pigment has a jet masstone color and high tint strength, and can be used in the same applications as Blue 20G599, as well as glass enamels. Learn more about Black 10G982 here.
FDA Food Contact Approval
In July, Shepherd Color obtained FDA Food Contact Approval (FCN2206) for not one, but two IR optimized black pigments to address different plastics uses. Both products are part of our Arctic® line of IR reflective pigments. Arctic Black 10F925 is a masstone optimized product for coloring OEM black food packaging materials. Arctic Black 10F951 is a higher tint-strength pigment when Post Consume Recycled (PCR) material must be colored. Read more here.
We are looking forward to a productive and exciting 2023!
