The Impact of Owens-Illinois on the World

Dr. Tom Brady began his career at Owens-Illinois, Inc. in 1972, just as the carbonated soft drink companies began asking their suppliers to create and offer family-size carbonated beverage containers, which required an industry-wide conversion from glass and aluminum to plastic. As a fledging Senior Scientist, Tom, along with his O-I colleagues and along with other industry plastic package suppliers, accepted the challenge and, over a short 10-year period, created an entirely new industry to supply sustainable PET packaging to the beverage, food, and personal care product industries.

During that same 10-year dynamic technology and business development era at O-I and as O-I decided to refocus on its fundamental glass container business, many of O-I 's talented technology and business professionals who had helped diversify O-I's business portfolio, left O-I to either start or operate other major businesses.

"The Impact of Owens-Illinois on the World" is Tom's effort to capture the stories of 29 of those former O-I employees who, without competing with O-I, employed their talents and O-I backgrounds, to create or nurture many dynamic and successful business enterprises.

Many of Tom's colleagues who are mentioned in this book are no longer with us so there was little background information to draw upon and there are undoubtedly additional former O-I employees who have started companies but are not included in this history. However, it is Tom's wish that this compilation will begin to recognize the significant contributions that former O-I employees have made to society, in addition to what they contributed during their careers at O-I.

Dr. Tom Brady is Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Plastic Technologies, Inc. (PTI) and five other PTI companies, including Phoenix Technologies International, PTI Operations, PTI–Europe, Guardian Medical USA, and The Packaging Conference LLC, a joint venture company which organizes international technical conferences. Founded in 1985, the PTI companies employ more than 200 people worldwide and are recognized for expertise in plastic packaging, plastic product and process technology development, plastics recycling, and specialty product manufacturing. (www.plastictechnologies.com)

Prior to founding PTI, Dr. Brady was Vice President of Plastics Technology for Owens-Illinois, Inc. (O-I) where he directed the technical activities for all of O-I's plastic product lines.

After serving on the Board of Trustees at both the Medical University of Ohio and the University of Toledo, Dr. Brady served as the Interim Dean for the College of Education at The University of Toledo (UT) from 2009-2011 where he directed the re-visioning of the college and managed the merger of the College of Education with the College of Health Science and Human Service to create a new Judith Herb College of Education, Health Science and Human Service.

Dr. Brady served on the Ohio Governor's Third Frontier Advisory Board from 2002 to 2012, and also served as an outside director for SSOE, an internationally recognized architectural and engineering firm. He remains active in the Society of Plastics Engineers and the American Chemical Society, and serves on the boards of Polymer Ohio, the Northwest Ohio Regional Growth Partnership, the Toledo Symphony, and the Advisory Boards for UT's College of Engineering, College of Education, and College of Arts and Letters.

Dr. Brady is a member of the Toledo Museum of Art Business Council and a founding board member of the Toledo Technology Academy and, he serves on the boards for Toledo School for the Arts, the Imagination Station Science Center, the Ohio I-Corps review board, Toledo Public Schools Business Advisory Board, Toledo Early College High School, and Lourdes University, a private 4-year liberal arts university in Sylvania, Ohio.

Dr. Brady received BA and MS degrees in Engineering from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1972. He was recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year in 1989, as Manager of the Year in 1996, and was inducted into both the Society of Plastics Industry Hall of Fame and the Plastic Machine Manufacturers Institute Packaging Hall of Fame in 2012. PTI received the Small Business of the Year Award in 1995, the Northwest Ohio Partner in Progress Award in 2001, and the Employer's Association President's Award in 2006. Tom and his wife, Betsy, were recognized jointly as Philanthropists of the Year in 2009 and have endowed the University of Toledo Engineering Innovation Center, the UT Engineering Freshman Entrepreneurship Program, the Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering Entrepreneurship Fund, the University of Michigan Engineering Entrepreneurship Fund, and the UT College of Education's Brady Partnership Schools Program, to prepare Early Childhood teachers for urban schools.