Page 66 - Innovation Delaware 2018

CHEMISTRY
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COMPANY TO WATCH
Change is never easy in business. From taking on new business models to reintroducing a company to customers, evolution and transformation are not for the faint of heart.
But that’s just what Ashland has done in recent years. And customers
and shareholders say the company is on the right track, says BRIAN MCGRATH,
Ashland
more than 6,000 employees around the globe. The company is pursuing new products and services, and in 2016 added 2,000 square feet of space to its coatings lab
in Wilmington as part of its overall innovation effort. Ashland, which offers
a range of products including in food, personal care, pharmaceuticals and industrial applications, rebranded in recent years, adopting the tagline “Always Solving.” McGrath says
the rebrand “highlights
our transformation” as a company, business model and a brand and speaks to the company’s approach to working with customers.
“That’s really what we’re known for — providing solutions to our customers with their most difficult challenges across a broad array of industries,” McGrath says.
McGrath credits application scientists at Ashland’s research center in Wilmington as playing a significant role
in the company’s go-to-
market strategy for health and wellness, personal
care and other industrial segments. “Many of them are technologists and are well known in the industries we serve as being solution providers,” he says.
Tracing its roots back to Hercules’ founding in 1912, McGrath says the company has long been supported by the Wilmington community, adding that “we feel like
we have access to some of the best talent in the Mid- Atlantic.”
He notes Ashland’s support for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs as part of cultivating excellent talent in the sciences. Among various efforts, the company sponsors the Delaware STEM Symposium and the STEM Educator Awards.
Says McGrath, “We’ve been a big believer in that program and quite frankly, we think we’ve benefited from being a part of it.” ID
REGINA HOLZBAUER
BRIAN MCGRATH
Ashland’s vice president for health and wellness and global supply chain.
“We’ve been going through a transformation over the last several years as a company,” McGrath says. “We’re well on our way to being a specialty chemical company.”
Founded in 1924, Ashland has evolved significantly from being a commodity distribution company with interests in oil refining and other sectors. The company acquired Wilmington-based chemical company Hercules in 2008 in a $3.3 billion
deal, and in 2017 split off the automotive and lubricant company Valvoline into a separate entity.
Last year, Ashland saw $3.26 billion in sales, with 250 employees at its campus in Wilmington and a total of
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TRENDS AND KEY FACTS
1. Chemical engineers in Delaware earn an average salary of $118,460 per year, which is higher than the national average for chemical engineers ($105,420 a year). Delaware is second only to Texas for
the highest average salary for chemical engineers. Delaware also ranks second in the country for the highest concentration of jobs in the chemical engineering field, ranking only behind Louisiana.
For every thousand jobs in Delaware, 1.13 jobs are in chemical engineering. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
2. Chemicals stand as Delaware’s top export in the manufacturing sector, accounting for $1.6 billion out of a total of $4.3 billion in manufactured goods in 2016.
Source: U.S. Trade Representative
3. The Delaware Innovation Space, an incubator developed by DuPont, the University of Delaware and the state of Delaware, received a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration to renovate a part of its facilities in October 2017. According to the Department of Commerce, the renovations are “expected
to create 657 jobs and generate $80 million in private investment.”
The facility is located at the
Experimental Station in Wilmington, which since its establishment in 1903 hosted the development of materials that have had a profound impact on human life, including Kevlar, nylon, Teflon and Lycra. Charles J. Pedersen earned a share of the 1987 Nobel Prize for Chemistry
for his discovery of crown ethers while working for DuPont at the Experimental Station. ID
Sources: U.S. Department of Commerce, DuPont, Nobel Prize Committee
64 DelawareBusinessTimes.com