By Liz White, UT staff
Accrington, UK-Baxenden Chemicals Ltd has appointed Tim Hughes as managing director, following the retirement of Norman Gee, after an eight-year stint running the company.
Hughes has been with Baxenden for eight years, and he has been general manager of the speciality chemicals division as well as more recently managing the applied chemicals division.
Following Gee's retirement, Baxenden has instituted a new group structure, which it says will integrate its two UK units, at Accrington and Droitwich.
In addition to Hughes' appointment, Baxenden has made John Simpson group commercial manager. John Lord becomes group operations manager and Richard Jones has been made group technical manager. Baxenden said Rick Spencer continues as group commercial development manager.
"Additional resources will be devoted to supporting the key group strategy for new product development," managed by Spencer, who is responsible for long-term research and development of new products through to commercialisation, Baxenden said.
Spencer will have support from Rob Lomax, who has the newly created role of business development manager.
Baxenden describes itself as "an established presence in the urethane chemicals market" with an "innovative portfolio of products."
These include speciality polyurethane prepolymers, blocked isocyanates, polyurethane dispersions, hydrophilic polyurethanes, polyesters and polyvinylacetate copolymers. The materials are used in a wide variety of applications such as adhesives, coatings, elastomers, foam and sealants. Baxenden says it also offers application equipment, particularly for foam and elastomer systems.
Pic: Tim Hughes, new Baxenden managing director"