Bill McConnell
Wm. K. “Bill” McConnell is president of McConnell Co., Inc., consultants to the thermoforming industry. Much of his consulting work is done in manufacturing analysis, assistance in product development, process troubleshooting, in-house training seminars, and development of processing specifications. He is asked regularly to be an expert witness and consultant to the legal field on plastics-related projects. Mr. McConnell’s pioneering contributions to the plastics industry are well recognized. He was one of the pioneers in thermoforming and plastics processing in the industrial and aerospace industries. Bill has been in thermoforming since 1948 and was awarded the first annual “Thermoformer of the Year” award from the Thermoforming Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers. He is also one of the 136 Fellows of the Society, out of 36,000 members. Bill was honored with a “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the 1997 Thermoforming Conference. He was inducted into the Plastics Pioneers Association in 1997.
Bill has been a member of SPE since 1953 and has served as an International Membership Chairman, Education Chairman and also President of the North Texas Section. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Thermoforming Division of the SPE. Bill is one of the founding members of this Division, and a former chairman. He teaches two, three, and four-day thermoforming seminars for the SPE, and has done so since 1972. Bill has also taught for the Rubber & Plastics Institute (England). In addition to the U.S., his seminars have been held in England, Belgium, Denmark, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and Mexico.
An expert communicator, Bill has lectured widely and written extensively on all phases of thermoforming, including contributions to textbooks in the field and such publications as the Modern Plastics Encyclopedia. He wrote the thermoforming chapter for the “Handbook of Plastic Materials and Technology” by Irvin Rubin and the “Thermoforming Technology” manual that is used as the textbook in his seminars. Bill has written a special training course for designers and engineers, on what can and can’t be done in thermoforming.
After attending Texas A & M University with a major in Aeronautical Engineering, he taught aerial navigation for the Navy and then founded and operated a non-scheduled airline for two years. Bill gained 14 years of invaluable experience as Vice President and General Manager of Texstar Plastics, a custom thermoformer, injection & blow molder, and thermoplastic sheet laminator, concentrating on the aircraft, aerospace, and industrial markets. He then organized a manufacturers’ representative business
dealing in plastic sheet, film and equipment which he operated for 20 years before selling to a long-time employee. In 1964 Bill founded AAA Plastic Equipment, Inc., manufacturing shuttle and rotary thermoforming equipment, and served as CEO and General Manager. In 1966 AAA Plastic Equipment joined the SPI. Bill was active on the Machinery Division Safety Committee until 1976. He sold AAA in 1979. Bill is a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Polymer Science and Engineering Technology Advisory Committee at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, and also a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Polymer Technology Consortium of Texas A & M University.
Bill’s career gives him a unique knowledge of all aspects of plastic thermoforming production, from the design of equipment and manufacturing to the successful marketing of the product.
