Allmond joy: New ASC president excited about group

INDIANAPOLIS—It has been a time of transition for the Adhesive and Sealant Council.

William Allmond was named the association's new president in August, taking over for Matthew Croson, who had stepped down in June to take the same position with the American Gear Manufacturers Association. Croson had led ASC since March 2010.

ASC cited Allmond's strong background and experience in regulatory matters, in addition to his innovative thinking, as reasons for his selection.

Allmond, speaking at the recent ASC Fall Expo in Indianapolis, is excited to begin work in the post.

“It really is a dynamic organization; it's growing in the industry,” he said.

“What really attracted me to ASC is the products that our members manufacture. Almost every consumer, commercial or residential, can relate to our products. They use them, they purchase them, they see the value of them every day even if they don't know about it. It's easy for me to relate to and represent an industry that virtually every person has been impacted by.”

He has spent more than 20 years working in the chemical non-profit community in the Washington area, the last 10 as vice president, government and public relations, for the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates. ASC said during that span he helped upgrade SOCMA's government relations to the point where it effectively leads key policy priorities through increased staff and company engagement strategies.

Prior to his time with SOCMA, Allmond worked for the National Association of Chemical Distributors as the director of regulatory and public affairs.

Allmond is coming to ASC at a time of change. The association is eliminating its two-convention format—traditionally in the spring and the fall—in favor of one show in the spring. Taking the fall expo's place will be the ASC's Executive Leadership Conference, which will become an annual event.

The move is designed to give ASC a bigger flagship convention and alleviate the burden on attendees. ASC projects at least 600 attendees and hopes to grow the expo from about 60 booths to at least 100.

“We wanted to expand our content throughout the year and bring up different types of opportunities to engage with members,” ASC Chair Traci Jensen said. “But also really concentrate all the efforts that we have at one convention. We think it will be better for suppliers, introducing innovations once a year rather than trying to come up with something every six months to talk about. We want to make sure this a big splash.”

The 2017 Convention and Expo, scheduled for April 3-5 in Atlanta, will maintain a similar schedule as the previous ones. However, Allmond said he could see the association adding an additional day sometime down the road.

ASC chose to keep the spring date over the fall for a variety of reasons.

“Spring is historically when we have the highest attendance of the two shows,” Allmond said. “The spring is also earlier in the year where our customers, suppliers and manufacturers can get together and plan for the rest of the calendar year.”

The 2017 Expo also will mark the debut of ASC's innovation awards, which will be given to two companies each year—the Innovation Award and the Small Business Innovation Award (companies with $50 million or less in global annual sales). Nominees can submit forms via ASC's website, www.ascouncil.org. They are due by Jan. 31, 2017.

Winners must meet the following requirements:

c The innovation must consist of a significant chemistry component;

c Reached a significant milestone in its development within the past five years;

c Strong end user value proposition;

c Supporting evidence of market insight; and

c Show how the innovation was validated.

“The intention of the award is to recognize significant developments within the industry and hopefully encourage the sharing of information and innovation across the industry,” Allmond said.

ASC is coming to the end of its current three-year plan, which means Allmond already is putting together the association's next three-year plan.

“We're going to start looking at these six objectives and decide whether or not to make adjustments based on what we foresee three years ahead,” he said. “Surely we will adjust some of the tactics, but I think keystone programs will continue, and some of the larger investments we've made under the current plan will remain in place.

“We're in a time in transition. It's definitely an exciting time to be in this industry.”

The current plan had six focuses—community knowledge integration, operational effectiveness, innovation, growth, education and industry voice. ASC certainly has made progress on all fronts. ASC Treasurer Chuck Williams—who will begin his two-year term as chair in January as Jensen transitions into her two-year term as past chair—highlighted that ASC added 12 new members in 2016, released three new market reports and the spring convention performed very well.

One of the ASC's biggest achievements, however, came on the education front. The association launched its certificate program in May.

The program has 12 courses, six required and six elective, coming from a multitude of webinars and courses that already have been established—at least 45. Allmond said the program has more than 200 graduates since it began.

“This is a fantastic opportunity,” Jensen said. “So far it's been dominated by new people in the industry. It is a great opportunity to get them involved and engaged in the adhesives industry. If you have new people joining your organization, it's a great opportunity to get them some foundational understanding of the adhesives industry.”

The next steps will be expanding the program internationally and broadening its offerings. Right now the program focuses on high level elements of adhesives and sealants, but Allmond envisions eventually offering more focused tracks for different subsets serviced within the adhesives industry.

“We have a tremendous amount of interest internationally,” he said. “Our first graduate was with a U.S. company, but in Asia. A primary target right now is getting our North American membership involved, but we want to take this to the next level and engage our sister organizations in Europe, Asia and South America. We want to share this broadly. That's a big priority for ASC.”