MNYCA Honors Paint Pioneers at Annual Holiday Party

The Metropolitan Paint and Coatings Association (MNYCA) honored seven individuals with its Paint Pioneer Award. This award honored colleagues who have given 25, 40 and 50 years to the advancement of the protective coatings industry.

50 Years
Stan Lesniewski began his career working for Resyn Corp, in 1970, as a Production Quality Control technician. Upon graduating Mt. St. Mary’s College (Maryland) in 1971 with a degree in chemistry and math, he returned to Resyn Corp and was hired to work in the Alkyd/Research and Development Lab. After 10 years with Resyn Corp, he was hired as the technical director for Synray Corp and helped the start-up company develop into a viable Aklyd resin supplier. In 1995, he was named president of Synray Corp, a position he currently holds.

Sam Morell is a chemical engineering graduate of New York University and founder of S.P. Morell and Company. His work experience includes both technical and marketing positions at Rohm and Haas, BASF and Air Products and Chemicals. Morell has authored numerous technical articles on additives, pigments, and resins in various publications. He has also presented technical papers at various regional, national, and international symposiums and workshops including The American Coatings Show, The Waterborne Symposium, The European Coatings Show and Coatings Trends and Technologies.

40 Year Members
Al Banks began working for Synres Chemical in March of 1978 as maintenance mechanic/boiler operator. Peter Tepperman purchased Synres Chemical in July of 1981, which he then named Synray Corporation. Banks continued to head the maintenance department for Synray Corporation. In 1990, he was promoted to plant manager and presently holds that position.

Gerald “Jerry” DeMenna graduated from Rutgers University with an undergraduate degree specializing in analytical chemistry, and a Ph.D. in organometallic synthesis; which was applied to the production of several specialized driers back in 1994. He worked for many scientific instrument companies (Beckman, Perkin-Elmer, Nicolet, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Varian and Shimadzu) for roughly 25 years supporting their customers. Many of these users were from Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore, Conlux, Dupont, Behr and Valspar that needed help establishing analytical methods that were properly validated; and his expertise and 2nd-degree burns gave him unique insights to develop and validate these methods.

He ran his own Independent R&D testing laboratory for another 25 years and sadly had to leave the consulting world. Dr. DeMenna is on the Advisory Boards for the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM), the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) and the American Association of Forensic Scientists (AAFS) where he reviews test procedures for everything from dry-time to coating hardness to abrasion resistance. He resides in Cape May with his wife and currently commutes to Troy Corporation, where he works as the director of Global Analytical Technology.

Dave Thompson worked for 26 years at Sun Chemical as an operations manager and worked his way up to VP of sales. He has been the coating manager at Heubach for more than 16 years.

25 Years
Brad McPhee’s career in the coatings industry began in 1984 when he joined Rohm and Haas Canada after finishing college. After several
years in marketing and technical sales, he was transferred to Chicago in 1996 to assume a key account role focusing on large industrial and architectural coatings accounts in the region.

In 1999, McPhee was promoted to a national account role and transferred to California. In this new role, he led the effort to build a cross-functional commercial and technical team to improve account management for Rohm and Haas. McPhee became the western district sales manager in 2005 and was promoted to the position of North American sales director in 2009.

Since leaving Rohm and Haas in 2013, he has held the position of VP of sales and marketing for a number of US and international coatings companies. McPhee resides in Doylestown, Penn. with his wife and currently commutes to Troy Corporation, where he works as the Global Business manager of performance additives.

Muhammad Hamid Ali received his B.SC from Karachi-Pakistan in 1978. He went to Canada as a student, and completed some independent courses at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He then studied at Dawson College, Canada, and got his DCE (diploma in collegial education). He took a job as QC (technician) at Muralo Paint Company (Norton & Son) Inc. Occasionally he worked in R&D. He worked from 1987 to October 2016 when the company was acquired by California Paint Products (ICP Company).