Goodyear Researcher Receives DuPont Award

AKRON, Ohio, DuPont has announced that Kevin Westgate of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, is a recipient of a DuPont award that recognizes the commercialization of an impactful new technology.

Westgate, lead engineer in the Global Material Science Group, along with three DuPont colleagues, is being recognized with DuPont’s 2009 Bolton/Carothers Innovative Science Award for advancing hybrid cord technology, featuring DuPont Kevlar® followed by successful commercialization in multiple tire designs. Other recipients of this prestigious DuPont award are Florencio Gopez of DuPont Protection Technologies R&D, and Mark Lamontia and Ted Diehl of DuPont Engineering Technologies. This highly effective team worked collaboratively over a period of five years to develop and bring to market a new technology creating substantial commercial success for both Goodyear and DuPont.

The Bolton/Carothers Innovative Science Award recognizes creative scientific invention or discovery that results in the creation of recently commercialized new products, technology, or business that is generating significant revenue with the potential for continued earnings. The award takes its title from DuPont’s remarkable discovery of nylon in the 1930’s, led by Wallace Carothers, as well as its commercialization which was led by Elmer Bolton. In bestowing this award 17 times in the past, this 2009 recognition marks the first time anyone outside of DuPont has received it.

The award presentations will take place on January 19, 2010, at The DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, Delaware.