Plastic2Oil Inc (PTOI)

[Ranb2khz]

Obviously, this is "what is so hard to understand?":

This was the beginning of IsleChem:

Friday, May 3, 2002

With OxyChem set to close tech center, IsleChem was born
Business First of Buffalo - by Tom Hartley Business First

Type of business: Contract chemical research and development, analysis, and manufacturing.

Who's who: Dr. Charles Rader, Dale Kunze and Edward Rowe are equal partners. Rader is chief executive officer of the company, Kunze is vice president of operations, and Rowe is vice president-commercial director of marketing, sales and tech services.

Clients/customers: Customers are mid- and large-size chemical companies, including Occidental Chemical Corp., which formerly owned the business.

Company history: Prior to last Nov. 30, IsleChem's founders were employed at Occidental's Grand Island technology center, now home of IsleChem.

Rader was a senior vice president in research and development, Kunze was technical director and Rowe was director of commercial development.

When OxyChem targeted the tech center for closing in a cost-cutting move, the three proposed keeping the business going by forming a new company and buying the building along with the expensive analytical and testing equipment.

At its peak, the tech center had 275 employees, but the number was only about 40 in 2001. The new company has 20 employees, all but one formerly with OxyChem.

IsleChem, which officially began operations last December, bought the 88,000-square-foot building and land for $375,000. The full value of the deal was undisclosed, but Rowe said the cost of replacing everything would exceed $30 million. This takes in the equipment in the approximately 20 fully-equipped laboratories, including seven that IsleChem uses, a pilot facility and the manufacturing area.

In addition to IsleChem, which uses about 25,000 square feet of space, the technology center houses three tenants: Durez Corp., which occupies about 11,000 square feet, and Process Technology Optimization Inc. and Programmable Life Inc., both of which use less space.

"We expect more tenants by July, which would mean that 40 percent of the building is occupied. Our target is to have 100 employees on this site by the end of the year," Rader said.

IsleChem's scope of work includes contract research and development, analytical services, sales and marketing in the United States for foreign companies, manufacturing of small-scale chemicals and scale-up work on ideas that start in a lab. "Some of what we do in R&D may end up in manufacturing eventually," Rowe says.

Revenues: Projected to reach $3 million by the end of this year, they are seen ranging upwards of $10 million by 2006.

What's ahead: The company expects to hire more employees this year and will double in size to 40 employees in two years. Kunze says employment could reach 50 by 2006, but there is no plan to be a large company with hundreds of employees on a scale of the tech center when OxyChem operated it.

Company strengths: "Our experienced people are our greatest strength," Rader says. "The average salary of our staff is $65,000 and that says something about our academic training."

Fifty percent of the employees in the knowledge-based organization have PHds in chemistry or chemical engineering.

The average experience is more than 20 years.

Down the road: In June, IsleChem and the University at Buffalo will launch a joint summer program.

The company will provide facilities, mentors and a stipend for students in UB's graduate chemical engineering program.

Initially, two students will be involved, but Rader envisions as many as 10 in a few years if the program is successful. They will work on real-world industrial problems submitted by IsleChem customers to earn six credit hours toward a masters degree.

"One of our overall goals in investing in this is to help keep a skilled work force in Western New York," Rader said.

The mission: Of several major key core areas, the two biggest are contract R&D and contract manufacturing.

Of the two, the manufacturing portion of the business is being developed to a higher level so it more evenly balances with R&D.

"Contract manufacturing is likely to be one of the most important aspects of our business," Kunze says.

The challenge: "We are going down a couple of avenues aggressively," Rader said. "One is we are launching our own line of chemicals which will be small-volume, high-value that we will market and sell.

"Secondly, we need to fully utilize the assets we have available for analytical work on site and expand our analytical services businesses," he said.

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2002/05/06/smallb1.html

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=50766217 <--this one was to you btw...