member nearest a transportation incident sends an emergency response team regardless of the shipper. When CHEMTREC is notified of an incident involving one of these products, the C H E M T R E C communicator alerts the appropriate network. D
Davis named president at Stauffer Chemical A chemical firm that hit on a winning management formula in the early 1970's has decided to try it again. Stauffer Chemical Co., Westport, Conn., has promoted dynamic, young chemical engineer Kenneth E. Davis, 44, to its presidency, effective at the April 16 annual meeting. Ph.D. chemist H. Barclay Morley will step down as president but will remain chairman and chief executive officer. Davis is currently executive vice president. The move is reminiscent of Morley's own rise to president in 1972 at the age of 43, following three years of declining earnings at Stauffer. Morley moved Stauffer further into specialty chemicals, pulled out of some lowprofit commodities and products susceptible to business cycles, emphasized exports, and adjusted prices to allow reinvestment and to recover cost increases fully. The result was an eight-year succession of earnings and sales increases that continued even during the 1974-75 recession. "We've built a very solid team of management," Davis says, "and I don't plan on making any major changes in the foreseeable future." This means there probably will continue to be change at Stauffer. Among specialty chemicals, the company deliberately has moved into such regulated markets as food additives and pesticides. Morley calculated that once Stauffer had cleared
regulatory hurdles for its own products, these would enjoy a long, profitable lifetime as regulations hindered competition. The firm also took advantage of a government-created market for flame retardants. The moves into flame retardants and pesticides allowed Stauffer to find uses for phosphorus other than low-profit sodium tripolyphosphate. What phosphates the company continues to make are channeled into high-profit industrial cleaner formulations and food additives. D
Dow spreads the word on safety
Dow Chemical U.S.A. has inaugurated a new and simplified system to provide its customers with current safety information on Dow products. Dow says it has mailed some 18,000 customers nearly 57,000 material safety data sheets covering more than 1600 Dow products. Who got what was determined from records of purchases that customers had made during the past two years. The material safety data sheets include such information as an emergency contact at Dow; spill, leak, and exposure procedures; first aid; notes to physicians; special handling requirements (as for ventilation, respiratory or eye protection, and protective clothing); and special precautions or additional information on handling and storage. Dow says the new system is a definite improvement over the old, whereby the company depended on its salesmen to pass out the data sheets to their customers. According to E. E. ("Mike") Merrill, Dow's corporate director for quality assurance, the company could never be sure that users of its products had received the latest health and safety information. At the same time, some customers were deluged with information that they really didn't need. Merrill notes that a complete set of Dow's material safety data sheets makes a stack about 3V2 feet high. Now, when Dow lands a new customer for one of its products, the salesman will still give him the appropriate safety data sheet. At the same time, the customer—actually the purchasing manager, in most cases—also will be added to a computerized mailing list. Under a centralized distribution system, the customer will get updated information quickly, but only for those products that concern him. Merrill says that Dow expects the Davis: foresees no major changes I new system to save money in terms of
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C&EN March 24, 1980
more efficient distribution. In these days of concern about product liability, he adds, the new system also could save on litigation, since Dow will have records to show that safety information was sent to customers.n
Carter readies tighter Soviet export controls New, much stricter criteria for permitting the export of goods to the U.S.S.R. are being prepared by the Carter Administration, as the President plans to continue and extend trade restrictions on high-technology and agricultural exports to that nation. The new criteria are expected to be published in the Federal Register later this week. The tighter regulations are the result of a review of U.S. policies on exports to the Soviet Union following the invasion of Afghanistan last December. President Carter imposed temporary export restrictions and suspended licenses for exports to the Soviet Union in January. The new guidelines impose tighter restrictions on the export of computers and computer software, manufacturing technology, and materials that can be used to manufacture high-technology defense goods. The embargo on the sale of phosphates for fertilizer and the controls on the export of grain and certain other agricultural products can be expected to continue, Commerce officials say. The Commerce Department will not, however, make a guess at how many projects would be affected by the tougher criteria. When the initial restrictions were imposed, there were 494 export license applications pending, covering shipments of about $150 million worth of goods. Approval of these applications was delayed and outstanding export licenses were suspended. All export licenses, pending or otherwise, will be examined individually under the new criteria In 1979, about 25 to 30% of the $800 million in nonagricultural products shipped to the U.S.S.R. were considered to be high-technology goods. In addition to limiting its own exports, the U.S. is taking its plans to the Paris-based Coordinating Committee on export controls. This committee, comprised of the NATO countries and Japan, coordinates each nation's controls on exports to the U.S.S.R., China, and Eastern Europe, The Europeans and Japan have been reluctant so far to support U.S. actions against the U.S.S.R., and it is conceded that the tighter controls may face difficulties as well. D
