At its recent Board of Directors meeting in Fort Myers, Florida, the SPE Thermoforming Division elected new officers.
Ed Probst is the new chair of the SPE Thermoforming Division and is principal of Probst Plastics Consulting based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Probst has 38 years of experience in the heavy gauge custom thermoforming industry. For 28 years he worked at Profile Plastics Corporation, Lake Bluff, Illinois, in manufacturing, engineering, design and sales. During that time, he had the privilege of working for and with three SPE Thermoformers of the Year: John Grundy, Steve Murrill and Stephen Sweig.
Probst is a senior member of the Society of Plastics Engineers and is a member of the Thermoforming Division, European Thermoforming Division and Product Design and Development Division. Over the years he has served SPE as chairman of the 2001 SPE Thermoforming Conference, Technical Program chairman of the 2005 SPE Thermoforming Conference, Technical Program co-chair of the 2012 SPE Thermoforming Conference, presenter at the SPE Thermoforming Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, and European Thermoforming Division Conference in Ghent-Belgium, SPE Product Design and Development Division (PD3) board chair and treasurer, co-chairman of the 2003 SPE PD3/Rotomolding Topcon in Cleveland, Ohio, and co-chairman of the 2014 SPE PD3 Design TOPCON.
Stephen Zamprelli is coming off his two-year stint as chair of the SPE Thermoforming Division. He now will serve as prior chair. Zamprelli is the vice president of engineering & product development at Formed Plastics. He joined the New York City area-based organization in 2011. Formed Plastics, nearing its 75th anniversary, specializes in thermoforming, rotational molding, fabrication and injection blow molding.
Zamprelli has over 20 years of expertise in designing and manufacturing products utilizing various processing methods. His prior experience enables him to approach issues from the customer’s point of view, assisting SPE to bridge the gap between the OEM and supplier. An active member of the SPE Thermoforming Division, Zamprelli joined its board of directors in 2013. He previously served as secretary, communications committee chair, parts competition chair and 2019 conference co-chair and currently holds the position of SPE Thermoforming Division chair.
Paul Uphaus is the new chair-elect of the SPE Thermoforming Division. He moves into this new role after serving as secretary of the Division for the past two years. Uphaus is the director of applications development & technical services at Primex Plastics Corporation, joining the company in August 1989. He has 32 years of technical experience in the plastics industry and manages a team of five product specialists and oversees all functions of Primex’s JJF Technical & Innovation Center located at their corporate headquarters in Richmond, Indiana.
Gordy Murphy is the new secretary of the SPE Thermoforming Division. As director of operations at LINDAR Corporation, Murphy is directly responsible for overseeing the engineering, capital planning implementation, information systems and technical aspects to support the ongoing growth of the company. Murphy has over 32 years of experience in the Thermoforming industry spanning both the Heavy Gauge and Thin Gauge industries. His past positions have included direct involvement with sheet extrusion, tool design and implementation, high-speed labeling and printing, as well as recycling of plastic materials.
Renee Vinsick is the newest member of the SPE Thermoforming Division Board of Directors. Vinsick is the business development manager for SIMONA Boltaron, a division of Germany-based Simona AG, a leading global thermoplastic manufacturer for the aerospace and mass transit industries, among other markets. Vinsick has participated on the SPE Thermoforming Division’s Education committee and has been involved in the plastics industry for over 30 years. Vinsick’s passion within the thermoforming industry is to continually work within the market bringing new opportunities to facilitate growth in all industries that thermoformers serve.
The division recently announced that its next conference will be held October 24-26, 2023, in Cleveland, Ohio. Booth space and sponsorship opportunities for the 2023 conference will begin later this year, and registration details will be posted to the SPE Thermoforming Division’s website, https://thermoformingdivision.com, in the coming months.
