2010 Section Award Winners

Henry T. (Hank) Kohlbrand is the recipient of the 2010 Noland Poffenberger Award given by the Mid-Michigan Section of AIChE for outstanding vision and leadership within the chemical engineering profession. The award honors the memory of Noland Poffenberger who helped found the Section in 1952 and served as the Section's first Chair.

Hank Kohlbrand is a 36-year member of AIChE and a long-standing member of the Mid-Michigan Section. As a Global R&D Director at Dow, Hank has actively encouraged others in the company to participate in local and national AIChE activities by supporting their attendance at meetings and workshops -- in recognition of the value that participation in AIChE activities can provide in terms of professional development opportunities. Perhaps most importantly, Hank has encouraged others by his example; he has served the Mid-Michigan Section as a Director and an active member of the Executive Committee, and has distinguished the Mid-Michigan Section by serving as a member of the national AIChE Board of Directors and as the 2010 President of the national AIChE organization.

Hank is the Global R&D Director for Process & Manufacturing Technology R&D at The Dow Chemical Company. He is responsible for the Corporate R&D Process Technology Portfolio and successful transition of new processes and products from R&D into operations. Prior to this role, Hank was responsible for Engineering & Process Sciences R&D, a group of over 250 people in the U.S., India, and Europe. Previously, Hank was the Business R&D director for New Businesses which included the Industrial Biomaterials Platform, Industrial Biotechnology, Electronics Materials, and Pharma Technologies.

Hank has also been Dow’s global director of external technology and intellectual asset management and was responsible for all external R&D and for Dow's Offices of Science & Technology in Europe and the Pacific. He has served as Dow's global manager of process waste elimination in Manufacturing & Engineering, and held a number of other technical management positions, including manufacturing manager – new monomer systems, research manger – engineering and market development, director of the Engineering Laboratory of Central R&D, and director of the Engineering Research & Process Development Laboratory of Global Core Technologies R&D. Hank joined Dow in 1974 after receiving a BSChE degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Hank is an internationally recognized expert in reactive chemicals engineering and process-scale up. He is a Fellow of AIChE and a member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Chemical Engineer of the Year - Laura Dietsche

Laura J. Dietsche is the recipient of the 2010 Chemical Engineer of the Year Award given by the Mid-Michigan Section of AIChE. Laura is an accomplished chemical engineer, a long-standing member of the Mid-Michigan Section, and an active participant in the national AIChE where she is a leader in the development of standards for accreditation of chemical engineering programs at the college level.

Laura Dietsche is a Research Scientist in the Engineering Sciences Laboratory at The Dow Chemical Company Over a period of more than 20 years at Dow, Laura has distinguished herself as a leader in the application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods to solve difficult problems in chemical manufacturing. She is an expert in the simulation of complex flows within chemical process equipment, including specialty heaters, coolers, and polymerization reactors. Laura's work in CFD and CFD-based optimization has had a tremendous impact in improving the cost-effective manufacture of numerous Dow products including polyethylene, polypropylene, FilmTec(R) membranes, extruded polystyrene board, styrene-acrylonitrile co-polymers, Dow Automotive sealants, as well as numerous agricultural chemicals.

In addition to her career accomplishments, Laura is very enthusiastic about passing along her experience and knowledge in CFD to others, both inside and outside of Dow. Inside of Dow, Laura is well known as a mentor to others. She is a leader of a bi-monthly CFD discussion group implemented to help others in Dow utilize various CFD-related tools including FLUENT, FIDAP, and POLYFLOW. Outside of Dow, Laura serves as a member of the AIChE Accreditation and Education committee charged with developing standards for chemical engineering education at the college level. Laura also serves as a member of the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). In this capacity, she regularly visits campuses to participate in the review and renewal of their accreditation status. Laura is also a member of the Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE) Task Force that is working to bring CFD training into the undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum. CACHE is a not-for-profit organization originally founded by the National Science Foundation to champion the development and use of computer-based tools in chemical engineering education.

Laura has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

Young Chemical Engineer of the Year - Mike Trippeer

Michael L. Trippeer, at age 35, is the recipient of the 2010 Young Chemical Engineer of the Year Award given by the Mid-Michigan Section of AIChE, in recognition of exceptional technical and project leadership accomplishments acheived at a relatively early stage in his career. Mike has been a member of the local section for many years, and he is active at the national level, currently helping to organize several sessions on extraction at the upcoming annual meeting in Salt Lake City.

Mike Trippeer is a Research Scientist in the Engineering Sciences Laboratory at The Dow Chemical Company. Mike joined Dow in 1996, and since then has held positions in manufacturing (Dowtherm/Dowfax), in Process Engineering, and in Dow's Engineering Sciences R&D Laboratory. Currently, he is a member of the Process Separations Group within the Engineering Sciences Lab. Mike is well-known within Dow for expertise in an unusually broad range of technologies, including distillation, steam stripping, extraction, and crystallization. Mike has demonstrated exceptional project management skills as well as exceptional technical understanding. He has contributed to numerous commercial implementations, including projects for Dow Automotive and Dow's Methocel(R) methylcellulose ethers. Since joining the Engineering Sciences Laboratory, Mike has also led the development of new distillation technology for robust distillation of reactive monomers, new reaction-distillation technology for production of ultra-pure agricultural chemicals, and new technology for cost-effective stripping of impurities from agricultural chemicals.

Mike is a 1995 graduate of Purdue University with a B.S. degree in chemical engineering.