OUR HISTORY
The MidAtlantic Rubber & Plastics Group, part of the Rubber Division of the American Chemical Society, is a technically oriented professional organization. It promotes personal relationships among those in education, polymer manufacture, suppliers of raw materials and producers of rubber products. The Group provides a regional network that aids in technical problem solving.
Our antecedents, the Philadelphia Rubber Group (founded 1945) and the New York Rubber Group (founded 1928), were similarly corporate members of the ACS Rubber Division with many mutual members. In 2005, merger began with formation of a joint Board of Directors. It was completed in 2006 with the MARPG, Inc. registered as a nonprofit corporation of Delaware.
MARPG Board of Directors
Liz Opsitnick
Chairperson
John Meser
Vice Chairperson
Steven Vajtay
Treasurer
Bret Neese
Secretary
Evan Silo
Director
Joseph Martin
Director
Paul Brigandi
Director
Gaurab Samanta
Director
Dilip De
Area Director
Bruce Rhoades
Alternate Area Director, Past Chairperson
“Hello, my name is Charlie Jabbour, and I and a junior chemical engineering at the University of Delaware. I was awarded the MARPG Undergraduate Scholarship for my Fall 2018 Semester. This scholarship enabled me to enrich this past semester’ scholastic experiences with less of a financial burden. Using my new-found confidence from earning this scholarship, I decided to spear-head an outreach project for the department’s new student organization, REACH (Recruiting, Engaging, and, Advancing CHemical engineers). The event, REACH Engineering Day, invited local high school students to come to UD for half a day and learn about chemical engineering. The schedule included lab tours, professor research presentations, and mini-experiments. The students had a great time, and seemed very excited at the prospect of going into a STEM field after high school. Without the MARPG scholarship, I do not believe that my efforts in college would have been as impactful for local high schools and the STEM community.”