KraftLignin.com feels it’s important to recognize our leaders in the kraft lignin industry. It would be impossible to identify everyone who’s made a difference or significant contribution to the industry. But we must begin somewhere and we are doing it with the KraftLignin.com Trailblazer Awards. We would love to receive your feedback and information on those leaders we may not know about. Our plan moving forward is to recognize a yearly “Trailblazer of the Year”.
2023 W.
Dale Mitchell
,
M.A.
Dale is the owner of kraftlignin.com and Pine Chemical Services LLC, a “hands-on” manufacturing and consulting firm focused on lignin, turpentine, and tall oil processes and sales. Prior to AMS, Dale served as Director of Biomaterials Business Development and Sales at Domtar for over 10 years. Dale's area of expertise is product development and commercialization of lignin, and he has sold an estimated 150,000 dry short tons of lignin into numerous global markets. Dale will tell anyone who asks that the greatest reward for his efforts with lignin is the people he has met on this journey. His experience in commercial lignin markets and his gratefulness for the people he’s met along the way earned him this recognition.
2020 Dr. Christian Hubsch
UPM’s “Head of Lignin Development” is our choice for the KraftLignin.com Trailblazer of the year award ! Christian has demonstrated his leadership working with BioPiva lignin and it’s use in several commercial applications. Christians most recent accomplishment was a successful negotiation with Domtar for the ongoing production of kraft lignin in Plymouth, North Carolina. He is considered an expert in lignin phenol formaldehyde resins. Christian’s knowledge and focus on commercial ready kraft lignin applications clearly make him worthy of this recognition.
2019 Dr Bruno Marcoccia
Domtar’s BioChoice lignin story can’t be told without acknowledging this Trailblazer. Bruno spearheaded Domtar’s first venture into lignin by engaging senior management, securing the funding, and working tirelessly with collaborators and government agencies to construct Domtar’s Lignoboost plant in 2013. As this market develops we should never underestimate the leadership role he played. Most recently Dr. Marcoccia has inspired thousands with his fight against Leukemia and his leadership with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
2018 Dr Wolfgang Glasser
With the help of Wofgang Glasser, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Sustainable Biomaterials at Virginia Tech, Cyclewood Solutins LLC, a start-up company located in Arkansas teamed up with BASF of Ludwigshafen, Germany. The partnership produced and tested prototype comostable bags made out of a combination of kraft lignin and a biodegradable polyester polymer called Exoflex. These XYLO bags met all of the usual requirements of mechanical strength and compostability. This teams success was based, in large part, on the research of Glasser and his many graduate students since 1972. Throughout the years, their research made the necessary chemical modifications to isolated lignin so that it was miscable with man-made polymers.
2013 Plymouth NC Start-up Team
When Domtar cranked up it’s Lignoboost plant in 2013, plans were to burn as a fuel. As fate would have it, purchase orders started coming in. Domtar did not have a bagging facility at the time, so this team jumped into action and built the first packaging plant using agricultural equipment. They certainly rose to the occasion and built a system in a few days which would eventually package 15,000 tons/yr of kraft lignin. These Trailblazers got the job done ! First Row ( L to R ) Robert Saunders, Vicente Ramirez, Kenny Esteban, Dale Mitchell. Second Row ( L to R ) Bayardo Caceres, Alfredo Bartolan, Cesar Hernandez, and Jose Caceres.