Polyscope founder receives SPE award

Uwe Wascher, one of the co-founders of Polyscope, is to be honored by the Society of Plastics Engineers' European Automotive Division with its lifetime achievement award. The award will be formally handed over by SPE representatives on Monday 21 October at 14.00 hours on the Polyscope booth in Hall 5, stand E08 at K 2013.The SPE Automotive Division Central Europe is dedicated to educating, promoting, recognizing, and communicating technical accomplishments for all phases of new automotive plastics and plastic based composite developments in the transportation industry. In a statement, SPE Central Europe said it had decided to grant this prestigious award to Uwe Wascher in celebration of the 15th SPE Automotive Award Night: "SPE Central Europe honours Uwe Wascher as an innovator for using thermoplastics in automotive".In a statement, SPE highlighted Wascher's contribution to the industry: "Uwe Wascher introduced new plastic applications for vehicle construction. In doing so he has exerted a global influence on development of polymer processing and plastics applications throughout the automotive industry". Together with his team at GE Plastics (currently, Sabic) he quickly realized the many opportunities for plastics in vehicle construction. He added to introduction of the first injected moulded dashboard as pebbled, visible part in Golf I, followed by further milestones such as the first thermoplastic bumper worldwide, the retractable doors and body exterior parts for the BMW Z1, not forgetting the full plastic body shell for the first Smart generation".An SPE spokesperson added: "In addition to many other inventions and patents, Uwe Wascher also introduced twin wall sheet, which today is a multi-billion dollar business. And in his current business ventures he continues to make an impact by, amongst others, the introduction of styrene thermoplastic with excellent features".On receiving news of the award, Uwe Wascher said: "It is a great honor to receive this award. All the more so, because I value the activities of the SPE Automotive Division - and fully underwrite their mission and objectives". Speaking of his experience in the industry, he said: "Innovation is based on superior material performance and commercial success is achieved through material science. I believe that my major achievement is converting an application by changing the material. I will continue to be intimately involved in the plastics industry as a stakeholder and chairman of Polyscope - a successful start-up that has already received several recognitions and rewards".Furthermore, about Polyscope he said: "I strongly believe that there are still many boundaries to cross and many innovations to come for plastics in automotive. Through Polyscope, we have been able to expand the product-basket available to the industry - by enhancing the performance of key materials used in cars".