SOCMA Events Provide Opportunities for Members to Network, Improve Business

By Jenny Gaines, Assistant Manager, Public Relations & Media

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth story in a four-part series celebrating SOCMA’s 90th anniversary.

SOCMA's Booth at Informex While SOCMA has held a myriad of events throughout its 90-year history, there is one major event the association is probably most noted for: INFORMEX.

Although SOCMA sold the show six years ago, it was a source of pride for more than 20 years because the trade show was conceived and developed by the industry, for the industry.

Next week, SOCMA staff will be heading to New Orleans to participate in the four-day event, as they do each year.

INFORMEX started out in 1985 in Atlanta as a small event where each company was given a 6-foot table, a couple of chairs and a company sign, according to Diane McMahon, SOCMA's former Vice President of Business Operations who worked closely with the INFORMEX Committee of SOCMA members after joining SOCMA in 1989. "As most products and services, INFORMEX was developed as a response to a need that the industry had," McMahon said. "Before the Internet, it was difficult and costly for buyers of custom chemical services to locate the right manufacturer for a product. INFORMEX, whose name means 'information exchange,' allowed buyers to come to one place and learn about many companies and their capabilities for custom chemical manufacturing."

Because the event made it easier for buyers and sellers in the marketplace to find each other and conduct business, the small event quickly grew to the internationally recognized event it is today. It grew so fast, in fact, that in just nine years it outgrew all hotel exhibition space in the U.S. Thus, the event moved to the Superdome in New Orleans. But that didn’t last long. It outgrew the Superdome in just two years. "I don’t think the initial SOCMA members who founded the event could have ever imagined outgrowing the Superdome!" McMahon said.

Few SOCMA members or employees know more about INFORMEX than Dolores Alonso, SOCMA’s Senior Director of Member Services & Marketing, who served as marketing director for the trade show from 1999 until it was sold in 2005.

"When I took the job, INFORMEX was already well-established," Alonso said. But during her tenure, she saw trade show attendance grow from 3,000 to 4,000 and the number of booths increase from 370 to 475 at the time of sale. "During those years, it was fantastic to see the show grow by leaps and bounds.

"In 1999, when they hired me, one of the first things we did was develop a website specific to the trade show; that was huge," she said. "We actually launched the first INFORMEX website and developed an extensive exhibitor directory, which became an amazing resource for both our members and exhibitors."

Alonso and the INFORMEX committee in 2001 introduced the idea of putting private meeting rooms on the show floor, which was another successful idea that companies loved. "We would sell 30 to 40 of them, and they are still using them today," she said.

In 2002, SOCMA introduced the enabling technologies poster pavilion, where exhibiting companies would have another area on the show floor where they could introduce the latest technology their companies were working on. "This is where they were bringing science and business development together," Alonso said.

"We had a lot of first things that are being duplicated by a lot of other organizations," Alonso said. "We were proud because everything worked. It wasn’t necessarily because they were great ideas; they were the right ideas at the right time. And, they were launched as the result of a collaborative effort between our staff and members who participated in the INFORMEX Committee. This was an amazing group of people we worked with," she said. "They allowed us to be innovative because they were innovative."

SOCMA’s INFORMEX committee came up with the idea of the Exhibitor Showcase Luncheon in 2003, which the trade show also continues today. "This is where exhibitors get up and give their presentations to an audience of up to several hundred people," Alonso said.

But in 2004, INFORMEX finally arrived, Alonso said. For the first time the show was moved to Las Vegas. "We finally became big enough to move to Las Vegas. It was at the Venetian Hotel, and it was spectacular. It was a big milestone."

Longtime INFORMEX Committee member Stuart Needleman of Aptuit remembers well the heyday of the trade show. "It was under my leadership that we moved the show to Las Vegas and tried out a new city, which had positive success," he said.

Needleman was also excited to see the show come back to New Orleans in 2006 in order to help New Orleans overcome Hurricane Katrina. "Coming back was a big thing," he said.

SOCMA made the decision to sell the highly successful trade show in 2005, which was a tough decision, according to McMahon. But thanks to the leadership of then-SOCMA President Joe Acker, who prepared membership, staff and the trade press on why the association made the decision to sell INFORMEX, there was barely a ripple of controversy, she said. "SOCMA showed that by selling the show, it was in the best interest of the batch, custom and specialty chemical industry."

Former Board of Governors Chairman Charlie Hinnant thought the move to sell INFORMEX was a good one. "Selling INFORMEX enabled SOCMA to gain solid financial status and allows SOCMA to focus on its primary reasons for being a trade association," he said.

Annual Dinner

SOCMA's Annual Dinner and Member Meeting Early December in New York’s Time Square has become synonymous with another well-known SOCMA event: the Annual Dinner and Member Meeting. The Annual Dinner is just one of many networking and educational events SOCMA offers members throughout the year.

The Annual Dinner started out in New York, where SOCMA was founded in 1921, and continues to be held there each year. But the Annual Meeting has not always been held in conjunction with the dinner. It has moved from time to time to places such as Hilton Head, SC, and Scottsdale, AZ, before being combined again with the Annual Dinner in New York several years ago.

Members who attend the Annual Dinner and Member Meeting take part in committee meetings, hear updates from SOCMA's President and Board of Governors, handle SOCMA business and find out more about SOCMA's legislative efforts in the past and coming year.

After starting the ChemStewards® program in 2005, the Annual Dinner has become the perfect place to recognize our Performance Improvement Award winners, members who excel in environmental, health, safety and security (EHS&S) activities, which is the very heart of what ChemStewards is all about.

The 2011 Annual Dinner served as a celebration of SOCMA’s 90 years of service to the batch chemical industry, and all members received a commemorative booklet to mark the occasion.

During his Annual Dinner presentation, Dr. Larry Brotherton, SOCMA’s outgoing Board of Governors Chairman, said, "Over the years we have had a distinguished list of industry volunteers rise to leadership positions and help guide SOCMA to the great organization it is today," Brotherton said. "In 1921, Salmon Wilder of Merrimac Chemical Company was the first of a long list of talented individuals to lead our Board of Governors. Through the leadership and foresight of individuals like him, SOCMA has become the home for batch chemical manufacturers by offering its members an impressive portfolio of programs and services, including the INFORMEX trade show and a host of other events."

Charity Golf Tournament

SOCMA's Golf Tournament A golf tournament has been a part of SOCMA history from the beginning, and for much of the 90-year history it was held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting and Corporate Excellence Conference.

But in 2004, SOCMA broke the golf tournament into a stand-alone event that benefits the American Chemical Society’s Scholars Program. Former SOCMA President Joe Acker was a big proponent of the Scholars Program, and he and McMahon worked with ACS’s Kathy Fleming to make the tournament a charity event.

The first tournament – the SOCMA Corporate Excellence Conference & Member/Guest Golf Tournament – was held September 12-15, 2004, at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay in Cambridge, MD. The first year there were fewer than 40 golfers, and the past two years, the tournament has drawn more than 100 golfers to the greens.

"After almost 10 years, we're going back to Cambridge, MD, the first location when it officially became an event to support the Scholars Program," said Liesa Brown, SOCMA’s Director of Marketing.

The tournament helps future chemical industry employees nurture their education, and in turn, it shows these students that the chemical industry cares about future scientists and wants them to be a part of the industry.

SOCMA recognizes the ACS scholarship winner at the Annual Meeting each year and presents them with a check. SOCMA gave ACS $3,000 the first year and more than doubled that amount this past year with a $7,000 donation.

In 2011, the name of the golf tournament was changed to the Annual Chemical Industry Golf Tournament, which was initiated by Brown in order to broaden its reach and let others in the chemical industry know that they could attend, no matter what their affiliation is to SOCMA. "We are very pleased that the name change was well-received, and the golf tournament continues to be a successful event," she said.

Compliance Events

But SOCMA’s event offerings don’t stop there. SOCMA also hosts events that provide members with expert compliance assistance, such as the Chemical Sector Security Summit and GlobalChem. "There are few chemical trade associations now a days that spend the type of resources we do to ensure our members have the tools they need to comply with regulations," said Bill Allmond, SOCMA’s Vice President of Government and Public Relations.

The Chemical Sector Security Summit, which SOCMA co-funds with the Department of Homeland Security, is the largest gathering of chemical industry security professionals in the nation. With as many as 700 registrants, this is a great opportunity for members to network with industry peers, DHS officials and other experts in the field and exchange valuable information and ideas. In just the last two years, SOCMA members were able to hear from top DHS officials such as DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and Deputy Secretary Jane Holl-Lute, who served as guest speakers at the event.

For 20 years, SOCMA has co-sponsored GlobalChem, which provides a unique educational opportunity for chemical industry professionals. GlobalChem provides SOCMA members with information and interaction with experts on the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), emerging issues and trends in the product stewardship arena and equivalent international regulations.

There’s also SOCMA CONNECT’s Annual Washington Fly-In, which has become a premiere event, where SOCMA members have face-to-face meeting with members of Congress and their staffs on Capitol Hill. Member Rainer Eischeid of LANXESS calls the Fly-In one of the top benefits of being a SOCMA member, and Steel Hutchinson of GFS Chemicals has used the event to educate his sons about the industry and legislative process.

For more about SOCMA events, see our Events and Conferences Calendar on the SOCMA website.

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