C& EN TA L KS W ITH
DAVID CARTMELL Water treatment additives executive tells how the discipline of studying for a Ph.D. in chemistry made him a BETTER CEO MARC S. REISCH, C&EN NORTHEAST NEWS BUREAU
an eye to eventually becoming CEO. But he left in life for which a Ph.D. in chemistry can prepare a within a few months after a change in the firm’s hardworking person. David Cartmell, 50, executive leadership. chairman and CEO of water treatment chemicals Jobless, he again offered to buy the water addifirm BWA Water Additives, says the discipline and tives business, this time from Chemtura. “It was a rigor required to get his Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry business I knew and cared about,” he recalls. “I had from the University of Leeds, in England, taught to try and buy it.” him how to think on his own and how to do things By May 2006, Cartmell had succeeded in makproperly without cutting corners. ing a deal to buy the business for $85 million with Chemistry, Cartmell explains, satisfies his hanbacking from the London-based private equity firm kering for practical answers to troubling questions. CBPE Capital. At the time, BWA Water Additives, “I’m not an artist. I can’t interpret poems. Science the name selected for the former BioLab Water Adand logic are what matter to me,” he says. And so ditives operation, had annual sales of about $80 milwhen he was offered the chance to get a Ph.D. by lion to water desalination, industrial water treatstudying the corrosive effects of radiation in nuclement, and oil-recovery customers. ar power plants, he took on the challenge. Calling on the discipline and attention to detail Cartmell completed his Ph.D. in 1985 and soon after got two job he learned as a chemistry student, he set about assembling all the offers. One was from the water treatment chemicals business of support functions an independent business needs, including acthe Swiss firm Ciba-Geigy. The other was from a chocolate maker. counting, information technology, and personnel management. “My wife wanted me to work for the chocolate maker, but for me “For the first three months, my head was spinning, but I loved it. It the chemistry side of chocolate was not as appealing as corrosion was exhilarating,” he says. chemistry.” Seera Investment Bank, a private equity firm based in BahAfter three years in Ciba’s Manchester, England, labs developing rain, bought BWA for $200 million in 2008. Then in June 2011, a corrosion test methods, Cartmell became a sales manager. He travPhiladelphia-based investment firm, Berwind, bought BWA for eled widely and worked with customers who needed $300 million. Today, BWA operates out of Manchesadditives to prevent clogging of then-new membrane- “Science and ter, England, and Atlanta. It counts 100 staffers, 25 based water desalination systems. whom are in R&D, and has annual sales of roughly logic are what of But his real education in business started in 1992 $150 million. when Ciba sold its water treatment business to FMC. matter to me.” Like the two private equity firms before them, the Ciba, Cartmell says, focused heavily on technology. new owners give BWA a high degree of freedom “as FMC valued technology but emphasized the bottom long as we deliver cash and stick to our business,” Cartline. He credits Jacqueline M. Renner, the FMC executive in mell says. The company had the operating latitude during the civil charge of the water treatment business, with “teaching me about conflict in Libya last year to supply treatment chemicals needed to operating cash flows and balance sheets.” In 1994 Renner apkeep desalination plants running in the rebel-controlled area of the pointed Cartmell to head marketing for FMC’s water treatment country. business. Three years later he became the business’s managing Cartmell says he agreed to supply the plants so that people would director. continue to have drinking water, even though he wasn’t sure when the company would be paid. “There is a humanitarian angle to this “I FOUND THE RESPONSIBILITY energizing,” Cartmell tells business; it is not just about making short-term profits,” he says. C&EN. “It wasn’t the status that appealed to me. I liked the re“They asked us to trust them. We did. They paid us in February.” sponsibility. It’s what my Ph.D. prepared me for.” Though he had Among all of BWA’s deal-making, Cartmell says, “probably the a support team, he found that leading a business was a lonely job. most important decision we made was not to manufacture our Ultimately, he was the final decisionmaker. “Three years on a Ph.D. products.” BWA bought patents, trademarks, and intellectual research project give you the mentality to do that,” he says. property from Chemtura, but left the manufacturing to Chemtura In 1999, FMC sold the water treatment business to Great Lakes and others. “I know that it is technology that matters, and technolChemical. There, Cartmell became executive vice president of Bioogy changes over time. Plants don’t change without investing a Lab Water Additives. In 2002, as Great Lakes’ profits came under fortune,” he says. pressure, he unsuccessfully tried to buy the business he led. As Cartmell sees it, “It’s the recipe and not what you cook it in At the end of 2004, shortly before Great Lakes was acquired by that matters.” More than 25 years after getting his Ph.D., he says, Crompton, now Chemtura, Cartmell left to join the fuel additives “my passion is still the chemistry and getting it to work in the maker Innospec in Ellesmere Port, England, as an executive with field.” ◾ BWA WAT ER ADDIT IVES
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