Proven chemical manufacturing professional with more than 25 years of excellence in leadership, team building, and delivering results. Solid track record of continuous improvement in batch and continuous chemical making, small and large scale packaging, consumer and industrial products. Wide-ranging experience including soaps, detergents, lotions, personal care, coatings, monomers, polymers, adhesives, solid-surface acrylics, specialty chemicals, sulfonation, union and non-union facilities. Specialties include Lean, Six Sigma, 5S, safety leadership, people development, strategic planning and scheduling, budgeting, training, systems, ISO, cGMP, change management, empowerment, accountability, and capital planning. I have a keen interest in the human side of manufacturing and business operations. I have been inspired by Dennis Bakke's "Joy at Work" and Peter Block's "The Answer to How is Yes." I believe we managers can do a much better job at creating work environments where every person can contribute and thrive and drive the success of the whole organization.

Plant Manager @ Day to day management of specialty multi-train polystyrene plant. From October 2014 to Present (1 year 3 months) Associate Director of Production @ Hired by the founder to set up systems and processes to launch a new line of specialty wood adhesives, Nexabond TM 2500. Developed batch making process, packaging line, shipping, etc. No late or short orders with brand new system. Operations rep on SAP by Design implementation. Wrote manufacturing procedures and trained new employees in all production processes. From February 2013 to August 2014 (1 year 7 months) Production Manager @ Manages the day to day operations of Pilot's Lockland plant. The Lockland plant manufacturers water and oil based specialty surfactants. The Lockland plant using proprietary sulfonation technology to sulfonate a wide variety of alkylates for industrial markets. From September 2008 to February 2013 (4 years 6 months) Production Manager @ Managed the day to day manufacturing of specialty surfactants at Pilot's Middletown plant. Pilot is a world leader in sulfonation technology. From 2006 to 2008 (2 years) Production Manager @ Managed scheduling, color-making and chip production for the largest volume cast sheet acrylic manufacturer in the world. From 2003 to 2006 (3 years) Plant Manager @ Managed two Cincinnati plants in the manufacturing of water-based coatings and additives. From 1998 to 2002 (4 years) Soap Division Manager @ Managed all facets of soap production from chemical soap making to high speed bar soap packaging. From 1986 to 1999 (13 years)

BS, Chemical Engineering @ University of Cincinnati From 1977 to 1982 Ed Knapp is skilled in: Production Management, Manufacturing, Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, Coatings, Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen, Design of Experiments, Operational Excellence, Root Cause Analysis, Production Managment, Polymers, Chemical Engineering, Process Optimization, Plastics, Adhesives, Process Simulation