FIBERGLASS PULTRUSION INVENTOR
Nupla Corporation celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and the company's founder, J. Allen Carmien, whose career spans more than six decades, and includes more than 75 patents, shows no signs of slowing down. After years of experimentation and dozens of patents, Carmien remembered the tremendous strength he achieved in tests using laminates with fiberglass. He knew that the production process was 99 percent labor and one percent raw materials. Such a labor-intensive process would never work because the cost of production would make the products too expensive. So he set out to create an automated process for mixing liquid resins with fiberglass, which would drastically cut the amount of labor needed to produce each product. The result of his efforts was a revolutionary process called pultrusion. While working to perfect the pultrusion process, Carmien bought all interest in New Plastics Corp., changed the name to Nupla Corporation and began making various products with the new technology. The company's most notable invention was incredibly strong fiberglass handles for professional-grade tools. Carmien's pioneering spirit has also made him a legend in the plastics industry. He was instrumental in the formative years of The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI). He served as chairman of the SPI Western Section and was a member of the SPI National Board in 1961-62. He was named the SPI Western Region's Man of the Year in 1994 and was inducted into the Western Plastics Pioneers Pioneers Hall of Fame in 1996.

For more information, contact Nupla Corp., 11912 Sheldon St., P.O. Box 1165, Sun Valley, CA 91352, 800-872-7661, FAX 800-546-8752.