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PHILADELPHIA — 17 January 2005 — The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) and the Founders Club today announced that Ting Tsung “T. T.” Chao will receive the ninth annual Petrochemical Heritage Award on Sunday, 3 April 2005, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. The award will be presented to Chao at the annual Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, held as part of the 30th National Petrochemical Refiners Association (NPRA) International Petrochemical Conference.
“T. T. Chao is a true pioneer of the petrochemical and plastics industries in Asia,” said Arnold Thackray, CHF president. “In the dark days following World War II, he cofounded one of the first plastics businesses in Taiwan, expanded to other Asian nations, then brought his considerable business acumen to America, resulting in further success. He is a truly global entrepreneur.”
About T. T. Chao
A pioneer in the chemicals and plastics industries, T. T. Chao has founded and built several successful businesses in a career spanning more than 50 years. The Chao family moved to Taiwan from Suzhou, China, in the late 1940s as the Communist regime took control of mainland China following World War II. In the mid-1950s, Chao was a cofounder of Taiwan’s first polyvinyl chloride (PVC) business. This business was backed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
A decade later, he established China General Plastics Group, which included a number of the premier publicly held petrochemical and plastics manufacturers in Asia. After three decades of experience and success in Asia he entered the North American petrochemical industry in the 1980s with the acquisition of a polyethylene plant in Sulphur, Louisiana, and the creation of Westlake Polymers Corporation.
In the late 1980s, Chao founded the Titan Group in Malaysia by building the country’s first and largest integrated petrochemical complex in the state of Johor. Chao was honored by the king of Malaysia in 1999 for his contribution to the growth of the Malaysian petrochemical industry. In 1992 Chao returned to his family home in China and founded a joint-venture company consisting of a PVC resin plant and downstream calendering plant near Suzhou. He now serves as the chairman emeritus and founder of the Titan Group and the founder of Westlake Chemical Corporation.
The Petrochemical Heritage Award
CHF and the Founders Club established the Petrochemical Heritage Award in 1997 to recognize individuals who made outstanding contributions to the petrochemical community; to inspire achievement; and to promote public understanding of the modern sciences, industries, and economies. Past recipients of the award are William A. McMinn, Jr., former president of Cain Chemical; Harold A. Sorgenti, former president and chief executive officer of ARCO Chemical Company; Herbert D. “Ted” Doan, former chairman and CEO of the Dow Chemical Company; Jon M. Huntsman, founder of Huntsman Corporation; Gordon Cain, well-known chemical engineer and business entrepreneur; John T. Files, founder and chairman of the Merichem Company; John R. Hall, chemical engineer and former president, chairman, and CEO of Ashland; and Ralph Landau, cofounder of Halcon/Scientific Design Group. This year's award is generously sponsored by the Westlake Chemical Corporation.
About the Founders Club
The Founders Club was established in 1981 by a group of petrochemical industry executives. The club's purpose is to recognize individuals whose successful careers have spanned 25 years of service in the petrochemical industry.
About the Chemical Heritage Foundation
The Chemical Heritage Foundation serves the community of the chemical and molecular sciences, and the wider public, by treasuring the past, educating the present, and inspiring the future. CHF carries out a program of outreach and interpretation in order to advance an understanding of the role of the chemical and molecular sciences, technologies, and industries in shaping society; maintains a world-class collection of materials that document the history and heritage of the chemical and molecular sciences, technologies, and industries; and encourages research in its collections.
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