Dear PSCT Members,

Happy New Year!  We wish you all a prosperous and healthy 2023.  I hope you all had a nice holiday break and come into the New Year refreshed and excited for everything 2023 has to offer.

Unfortunately, the December event at the Breakout Room did not happen.  We didn’t have enough people sign up and needed to cancel.  I am looking forward to seeing what we can do to make our Spring event in May a success.  Ideas are most certainly welcome.  Please let anyone on the board know if you have some venues in mind.

The application deadline for the Hiram P. Ball Memorial Scholarship is March 15^th, 2023.  A template scholarship form will be available at the end of this newsletter or you can access online at https://paintsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/PSCT-scholarship-form-2023.pdf. Applicants must be children of active members who meet eligibility requirements and have attended 4 PSCT events in 2022-2023 or student members who meet eligibility requirements.

Over the next month we will be making some revisions to our by-laws regarding the definition of Corporate Membership. In order to update the by-laws, those updates must be posted to the group and then reviewed and voted on over the next two meetings.  This month we are doing the posting in a section below and then will be voting on the changes in the next months.  This change was prompted because there was no definition of this type of membership in the by-laws.

Please join us on Monday January 9^th at Rolands for our monthly speaker series.  Our first speaker for 2023 will be Tim Chen who will be presenting about renewable products and sustainability at BYK.  Tim and BYK have been long-time supporters of the PSCT and his talks always offer interesting perspectives.  We will also be hosting this talk online for those who can’t make it in-person.  Please RSVP either way.

I would like to remind everyone that membership is still open and encourage anyone who is interested in advertising their company or sales/business development team to contact us and let us know you would like to post your  business cards or advertisement in ¼, ½ or full-page advertisements in our monthly newsletter.  These advertisements help support the PSCT. 

We look forward to seeing you all at the start of the year!

Best regards, Art Kasson, PSCT President 2022-2023

Dear PSCT Members,

I would like to start out this message by welcoming our new Vice President, Melissa Swogger.  Melissa has agreed to backfill this open role within the organization and we are very appreciative of her support.  Melissa works as a chemist in the analytical group at KTA-Tator.

Please join us on December 12^th from 5:30-8:00PM for our annual holiday event which will take place at the Pittsburgh Breakout Games in Ross Township.   We will be meeting for pizza and drinks at 5:30 pm at Pizza Roma first and then moving to the Breakout rooms at 6:30PM.  We hope you can join us.  Details for the event are included in this newsletter.

 Over the next two months the Board of Directors is presenting some revisions to the PSCT Bylaws regarding the definition of Corporate Membership.  In order to update the Bylaws, the changes must be posted to the membership, reviewed and voted on at  two meetings.  This change was prompted because there was no definition of this type of Membership in the Bylaws. Please see section regarding Bylaws.

I would like to remind everyone that membership is still open and encourage anyone who is interested in advertising their company or sales/business development team to contact us and let us know you would like to post your cards or advertisement in ¼, ½ or full-page advertisements in our monthly newsletter.  These advertisements help support the operational fund for PSCT

We will move back to Rolands on January 9^th, 2023 for our speaker series and dinner meeting.  January’s speaker will be Chris Mosinski from BYK.  Chris is the End Use Manager, Deco Applications and will be speaking about Sustainability and Renewable Products.

Everyone here on the PSCT Board hope you all have a great December and an excellent Holiday season with friends and family!  We look forward to seeing you either at our December event or in the New Year!   

Best regards, Art Kasson, PSCT President 2022-2023

Dear PSCT Members,

We had a great October meeting and a wonderful talk from Jeff Niederst, who is the global marketing director for beverage coatings at Sherwin-Williams.  SW are doing some very interesting work in this area and we appreciated his insight into NBPA beverage can technology.

Our winner of the $95.00 drawing for the PSCT 95^th year was Josh Wolfe from Shamrock Technologies.  We included all paid members into the drawing whether in attendance or not.  Congratulations Josh!

I would like to remind everyone that membership is still open and encourage anyone who is interested in advertising their company or sales/business development team to contact us and let us know you would like to post your cards or advertisement in ¼, ½ or full-page advertisements in our monthly newsletter.  These advertisements help support the operational fund for PSCT.  Membership will close after the start of the year.

Our second speaker of the year will be Reza Rock, Senior Group Leader, Coatings and Innovation, PPG. The talk is titled “Electrocoat Technology: Past Achievements,Present Challenges and Future trends” and is scheduled for Monday, November 14^th, 2022 at 6:00PM. The presentation will be offered both virtually and in-person at Roland’s and dinner will be served shortly before the presentation begins.

I hope you all have a great November and an excellent Thanksgiving Holiday!    

Best regards, Art Kasson, PSCT President 2022-2023

Dear PSCT Members,

Thank you to all who attended our Scholarship golf event on Thursday, September 8^th.  We had another beautiful day on the course at Birdsfoot in Freeport, PA!  Thank you to our golf chair, Chris Gehly from Matthews Marking, who does a phenomenal job keeping the event running smoothly.  We’d also like to thank our sponsors (listed below) who graciously donated.  And, of course, none of this is possible without our dedicated golfers.  We had our usual bagpipe send-off and the foursome winners this year were Group 3: Ryan Yaworski, Stephan Uijtewaal, Tom Dressel and Matt Mock.  Congratulations!

We currently have an opening for Vice President in our organization.  If you have an interest in serving the coatings community then I would encourage you to apply.  This is a 3-year position and you would cycle from Vice President to President to Past President (all 3 are voting positions for the board).  It’s a great way to give back to this community!

I would like to remind members that membership is still open and encourage anyone who is interested in advertising their company or sales/business development team to contact us and let us know you would like to post your cards or advertisement in ¼, ½ or full-page advertisements in our monthly newsletter.  These advertisements help support the operational fund for PSCT.

Our first speaker of the year will be Jeff Niederst, Global Marketing Director from Sherwin Williams. The talk will be on “BPA Free Packaging Coatings” and is scheduled for Monday October 17^th, 2022 at 6:00PM. The presentation will be offered both virtually and in-person at Roland’s and dinner will be served shortly before the presentation begins.

I hope you all have a great October.  Don’t worry, in about two weeks Starbucks should be coming out with their peppermint holiday coffees!

Best regards, Art Kasson, PSCT President 2022-2023

Dear PSCT Members,

Here we are at the start of the 2022-2023 year for PSCT!  Welcome back. We are starting the year off with our Scholarship Golf Event in September at Birdsfoot.  If you haven’t signed up or would like to be a sponsor please contact Chris Gehly, our golf chair at events@paintsociety.org.  As usual we would like to thank our generous sponsors and golfers for supporting this yearly event.  The event is Thursday September 8^th with an 11:00AM shotgun start.

I would like to remind members that September is the time to renew your dues for PSCT.  Anyone who signs up for membership by September 30^th will be eligible for a special prize we give at our October meeting.  This year we will celebrating the 95^th year of PSCT so our prize will be $95.00.  In the same breath, I would encourage anyone who is interested in advertising their company or sales/business development team to contact us and let us know you would like to post your cards or advertisement in ¼, ½ or full-page advertisements in our monthly newsletter.  These advertisements help support the operational fund for PSCT.

We are encouraging and making an effort to increase student membership this year.  If you know of any college-aged students who would benefit from our attending our monthly speakers or speaking to people within the coatings industry we would encourage you to send them our way.  Student membership is only $10/year. 

Our first speaker of the year will be Jeff Niederst, Global Marketing Director from Sherwin Williams. The talk will be on “BPA Free Packaging Coatings” and is currently scheduled for Monday October 17^th, 2022 at 6:00PM. The presentation will be offered both virtually and in-person at Roland’s and dinner will follow the presentation.

Finally – we have an opening for Vice President in our organization.  If you have an interest in serving the coatings community then I would encourage you to apply.  This is a 3-year position and you will cycle from Vice President to President to Past President (all 3 are voting positions for the board).  It’s a great way to give back to this community!

Best regards, Art Kasson, PSCT President 2022-2023

Dear PSCT Members,
Thank you to all who attended in-person and virtually for Smriti Arora’s talk in April about next
generation BYK additives. Thank you to Smriti as well for the presentation. She was happy to share her
slides, so if you would like a copy of the talk please ask anyone from the board.
It is an honor this year to present the Hiram Ball Scholarship award to both Zoe Katres and Isaac Tyger!
More information about the applicants is provided in this newsletter. Congratulations!
For our spring social event we will be at Contemporary Craft in Lawrenceville on May 9 th . Please register
using the Paypal option on the website where you will also be able to pick from two workshop options.
Spaces are limited per workshop so please register soon! No prior creative experience is necessary so
please join us for our last meeting of the PSCT year!
I’d like to thank all of the board members and committee members for their time, assistance, and
experience this year. As I mentioned in my first letter in August, this society would not be possible
without their support! Also, thank you to all of our members who continued to support the society
throughout the past few years while we made adjustments due to the pandemic. You never realize how
valuable face-to-face time is with people until you can’t have it. Hopefully more of us can spend time
together in-person moving forward. Be sure to save the date for the Thursday, September 8 th golf outing
at Birdsfoot!
Julia Baur, PSCT President 2021 – 2022

Dear PSCT Members,

Happy Spring! I hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather and the extra hour of sunshine in the evenings! Special thanks to Chris Gehly of Matthews Marking Systems for the interesting presentation in March on thermal inkjet and industrial printing technology.  Chris shared some surprising tips regarding inkjet printing. Our group learned a lot from his talk.

Our last technical meeting of the PSCT year will feature a presentation by BYK on substrate wetting. This presentation will be hosted with dinner at Roland’s and online on April 11^th. Our election of officers and board of directors for the next PSCT year will also occur at the April meeting.

Please keep your calendars marked for Monday, May 9^th which will be our Spring Social Event. The May event will be in the evening at Contemporary Craft in Lawrenceville. More details and registration instructions will be announced soon!

Julia Baur, PSCT President 2021 – 2022

Dear PSCT Members,

We had a great turnout for our February meeting which featured Dr. Ingrid Meier who gave a very informative presentation about film coalescence and coalescing surfactants in low-VOC coatings. Thank you to Dr. Meier and everyone who attended!

The completed applications for the PSCT Hiram P. Ball Memorial Scholarship and STEM grant are due by Tuesday, March 15^th. Please remember to submit the application to our scholarship chair email at scholarship@paintsociety.org. The application can be found attached to this newsletter and online.

We are currently in the planning stages for our May social event which will be something new and different for our members! There will be an announcement soon as we finalize the details.

For our March meeting we had a change in our schedule and will now be featuring Chris Gehly from Matthews Marking Systems. We are excited to have Chris, a PSCT Past President, presenting in-person at Roland’s. His talk will be focused on thermal inkjet printing. We will still feature the presentation online for our remote members. See you on March 14^th!

Julia Baur, PSCT President 2021 – 2022

First, I’d like to first thank Jeremy Pafford from ICIS for taking the time to present at our January meeting about Coatings in the PostPandemic Era. If you missed it and would like a copy of the talk, feel free to reach out to a member of the board. As we move closer to springtime, I want to note to our members that we will have open board and committee positions available for the upcoming PSCT year. Getting more involved in the society is a great step to take to build relationships with others in the industry! If you are interested, please reach out to anyone currently on the board. We are happy to answer any questions! We have a change in our schedule and our February meeting will feature Dr. Ingrid Meier from Evonik. Her talk will focus on surfactants in low-VOC coatings. We are looking forward to the presentation! In honor of President’s Day, any former PSCT presidents will be charged a discounted rate for the in-person meeting and dinner. I hope you can join us on February 7th!

Julia Baur, PSCT President 2021 – 2022

Dear PSCT Members,

Thank you to Dr. George Mauer from Chitec Technology for his interesting and informative presentation on UV absorbers. George was our first in-person presentation since February 2020! Thank you to our Past President Chris and our Vice President Art for allowing us to still air the presentation to our virtual members.

I hope you will consider joining us at Istituto Mondo Italiano on Monday, December 13^th for a private pasta making class for PSCT members and guests! We encourage everyone to register online through our website for the event. Space is limited, so please RSVP by December 1^st.

I’d like to wish everyone a happy, safe, and healthy holiday and new year!

Julia Baur
PSCT President 2021 – 2022