Bruce Prime - July, 2024
The Golden Gate Polymer Forum traces its roots to a symposium held in June 1980, at which attendees enthusiastically endorsed the formation of a local group with a primary focus on polymer characterization. GGPF has evolved over the years and now addresses a broad scope of polymer science and engineering topics.
The Beginning
When my SPE[1] colleague from Chicago, Connie Huffman, moved to the Bay Area in 1980 I was able to give her a six-month job in my lab while she pursued full-time employment. She told me about a local group in Chicago affiliated with the Plastics Analysis Division (PAD) of SPE. She thought a similar group could do well here[2] and I agreed. To explore the level of interest we first established the Golden Gate Polymer Analysis Division (GG PAD) within the national SPE organization. We then organized a GG PAD symposium with the express purpose of gauging that level of interest. The announcement, shown in Figure 1, was graciously mailed to the bay area polymer characterization community by instrument companies. The more than 100 attendees and respondents expressed an overwhelming interest and GG PAD was launched.
GG PAD Years 1980 – 1987
For the first eight years as the GG PAD our primary focus was polymer characterization and our audiences were largely drawn from the electronics and aerospace industries. Our programs consisted primarily of half-day symposia, listed in Table 1, plus a few dinner meetings, listed in Table 2. Table 3 lists the Chairs and Program Chairs. Note that the Program Chairs automatically ascended to chair for the following year.
The Asilomar Years, GG PAD Becomes GGPF 1987 – 1996
Starting in 1987 we held 4-6 meetings per year, including a Spring Asilomar Conference. The first was the Wilkes and McGrath Polymer Science and Engineering short course. All of the Asilomar Conferences are listed in Table 4. The format was typically two keynote speakers plus 4-8 local invited speakers. After the Wilkes and McGrath course in 1987 the conferences were held starting Monday afternoon and concluding noon Tuesday.
Figure 1. Announcement for the first meeting of the GG PAD in 1980.
In 1987 we decided to broaden our scope and became an independent organization that we named the Golden Gate Polymer Forum (GGPF). The GGPF existed after 1987 as an unincorporated association, not affiliated with a larger organization. The GGPF continued to operate and remain financially solvent. But discussion began on the benefits and feasibility of incorporating the GGPF. A subcommittee was formed in 2002 to perform further research, resulting in the recommendation to move forward. Articles of incorporation and bylaws were drafted, but we soon learned that our name too closely matched that of another local entity, Golden Gate Polymers, which was in the business of thermoplastic recycling. The general manager of Golden Gate Polymers, however, graciously gave us permission to continue the use of our name. Finally, on July 12, 2002, articles of incorporation were filed with the California Secretary of State, declaring the GGPF as a nonprofit public benefit corporation with the purpose of promoting and disseminating educational or scientific information related to polymeric materials to the public. The first board meeting was held on August 26, 2002, at Ming’s Restaurant in Palo Alto and Clayton Henderson was elected as President and Chairman of the Board. The following year, we received tax exempt status as a 501 (c)(3) public charity from the IRS.
Table 1. GG PAD Half-day Symposia
Polymer Spectroscopy, April 1981, Curt Frank, Stanford; G. Gray, John Rabolt, IBM; William Prest, Jr., Xerox.
Thermal Analysis in Research & Production, Short Course, June 1981, Edith Turi, Allied Signal.
Practical Applications of DMA, November 1981, Lawrence Nielsen, Monsanto; Joseph Starita, Rheometrics; John Gillham, Princeton; Thor Smith, IBM.
Solid State Characterization of High Polymers, June 1982, Richard Stein, UMass; Jim Lyerla, IBM; Jim Seferis, UWash.
Polymers in the Electronics Industry, November 1982, Dennis Hess, Geogia Tech; Don Hofer, IBM; Barbara Grant, IBM.
Characterization of Macromolecules by Thermal Analysis, Short Course, March 1983, Bernhard Wunderlich, RPI.
Polymers and Composites, January 1984, T. E. Helminiak. Wright-Patterson; Isaac C. Sanchez, UT Austin; William Prest, Jr., Xerox.
Surface Analysis, May 1984, Donna Bakale, U. Illiinois; A. Joshi, Lockheed-Martin; C-M Chan, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Attila Pavlath, USDA.
Thermal Analysis in Research & Production, Short Course, March 1985, Edith Turi, Allied Signal.
Dynamic Mechanical and Dielectric Measurements on Thermosets and Composites, January 1986, George Springer, Stanford; Fred Klein, RT Instruments; Richard Farris, UMass; C. Salvado; Ray Wetton, Polymer Labs.
Table 2. GG PAD Dinner Meetings
Scherer, Lockheed-Martin.
Polymers and Controlled Drug Delivery, November 1984, Ronald A. Siegel, UMinn.
The Polymer-Polymer Interface, January 1985, Dale Meier, Midland Molecular Institute.
Table 3. GG PAD and GGPF Chairs and Program Chairs
1980-1981 Chair: Connie Huffman, Program Chair: Bruce Prime
1981-1982 Chair: Bruce Prime, Program Chair: John Rose
1982-1983 Chair: John Rose, Program Chair: Eric Kong
1983-1984 Chair: Eric Kong, Program Chair: Martha M. Steiner
1984-1985 Chair: Martha M. Steiner, Program Chair: Guillermo Mayorga
1985-1986 Chair: Guillermo Mayorga, Program Chair: Mark Hoffman
1986-1987 Chair: Mark Hoffman, Program Chair: Bob Cox
1987-1989 Chair: Bob Cox, Program Chair: Bill Dickstein
1989-1990 Chair: Bill Dickstein, Program Chair: Richard Siemens
1990-1991 Chair: Richard Siemens, Program Chair: Andrea Chow
1991-1992 Chair: Andrea Chow, Program Chair: Subbu Venkatraman
1992-1993 Chair: Subbu Venkatraman, Program Chair: John Evans
1993-1994 Chair: John Evans, Program Chair: Clayton Henderson
1994-1995 Chair: Clayton Henderson, Program Chair: Lothar Kleiner
Table 4. Asilomar Conferences
1987: Polymer Science & Engineering Short Course, Jim McGrath and Garth Wilkes, Va Tech.
1988: Thermal and Surface Characterization, John Gillham, Princeton and Bernhard Wunderlich, RPI, joint with So. California Thermal Analysis Group (SCTAG)
1989: Composites: Structure, Function & Analysis, Roger Morgan, Midland Molecular Institute and James Seferis, UWash.
1990: Recent Advances in Rheological Characterization of High Performance and Multiphase Materials, Dale Pearson, UCSB and Henning Winter, UMass.
1991: no conference
1992: Adhesion Science: Fundamentals & Applications, Ray Dickie, General Motors; Wim van Ooij, U. Cincinnati; Lynn Mahoney, Dexter Corp. and Mun Fu Tse, ExxonMobil.
1993: The Current State and Future Direction of Polymers in Technology, James McGrath, Va Tech and James Seferis, UWash.
1994: Theories and Applications of Polymer Networks, James Mark, U. Cincinnati and Bruce Eichinger, Accleyrs.
1995: New & Emerging Methods of Analysis & Characterization of Polymeric Materials, Julie Harmon, U. South Florida and Bernhard Wunderlich, RPI.
1996: Novel Characterization Techniques for Polymer Processing, Julia Kornfield, Cal Tech and David Cory, U. Waterloo.
1997 to the Present
Starting in the Fall of 1997 our events have been chronicled on our web site: ggpf.org Past Events. In a typical year we hold 9-10 dinner meetings and 1-2 larger events, generally 2-3 days in duration. Notable was the addition of an annual, joint dinner meeting with the Silicon Valley chapter of the American Chemical Society (SV-ACS) in 2015. Through 2005 we organized one symposium per year (see Table 5). Due to the significant amount of organization required we offered only one more symposium, in 2017. Starting in 2003 we shifted to offering short courses offered by outside organizations. These tend to be turnkey in nature, i.e., the technical content is provided by the presenters and they can be offered with significantly less organizational input by GGPF (see Table 6 for short courses offered from 2003 to 2024). A notable exception was the 25th Anniversary Symposium, celebrating the side-by-side growth of the GGPF and polymer technology, see the full program and the end of this history. Details of all symposia and short courses can be found at http://ggpf.org/past-events/. A 40th Anniversary event was in the planning stages when the COVID-19 pandemic arose in early 2020, forcing us to suspend in-person events. The GGPF responded with monthly webinars in June of 2020 that followed the format of the monthly dinner meetings, and virtual short courses the same month and which continue through the time of this writing.
Table 5. Symposia 1997 – 2020
Chemistry and Characterization of Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces. November 13, 1997.
Polymers in Medical Device Applications. October 26, 1998.
Polymers in Optoelectronics, Displays and Advanced Technologies. June 7, 1999.
Recent Advances in Polymer Processing. June 5, 2000.
Polymers in Controlled Release. October 22, 2001.
Polymers in MEMS and Sensor Applications. May 30, 2002.
NATAS/GGPF Symposium on Recent Developments in Thermal Analysis and Microanalytical Techniques, March 5, 2003.
Polymers in Medicine. March 16, 2004.
GGPF 25th Anniversary Symposium & Banquet: From Macro to Nano. October 23-24, 2005. See full program 2 below.
Symposium on Polymer Characterization. March 13-14, 2017.
Table 6. Short Courses 2003 – 2020
NATAS/GGPF Short Course. Fundamentals of Thermal Analysis, March 3, 2003. Characterization of Polymers by Thermal Analysis in parallel with Pharmaceutical Applications of Thermal Analysis, March 4, 2003.
Polymeric Science and Engineering: A Comprehensive Basic Course. Tom Ward and Garth Wilkes, Virginia Tech. January 14-16, 2005.
Biopolymers: Polymers in Medicine. May 5-7, 2006. Allan Hoffmann, University of Washington; Sturat Williams, University of Arizona; and Gary Wnek, Case Western Reserve University.
Adhesion Science: Mechanics, Surfaces and Chemistry. May 7-9, 2007. Al Pocius, 3M.
Polymer Characterization with Applications from Biomaterials and Medical Devices. March 27-29, 2008. Greg Haugstad, UMinn; Shaw Ling Hsu, UMass; Steven Goodman, 10H Technology and UWisc.
Statistics for Quality. November 3-5, 2008. Anand Joglekar, Joglekar Associates.
Thermal Analysis of Polymers. May 24-25, 2010. Joe Menczel, Alcon Laboratories, retired; Bruce Prime, IBM, retired; Harvey Bair, Bell Labs, retired; Seve Dillman, Western Wash. U.; and Larry Judovits, Arkema.
Crystallization and Mechanical Behavior of Polymers. November 1-2, 2010. Pravin Soni, Pharmacro, LLC.
Rheology Short Course. July 13-15, 2011. Chris Macosko, UMinn; Gerald Fuller, Stanford; Gareth McKinley, MIT; Randy Ewoldt, UMinn.
Polymer Processing. October 24-26, 2011. Chris Rauendaal, Rauendaal Extrusion Engineering.
Basics of Polymer Structure and Characterization. June 25-27, 2012. Shaw Ling Hsu, Alan Lesser and Bryan Coughlin, UMass.
Thermosets: Chemistry, Characterization and Properties. November 7-9, 2012. Jeff Gotro, Innocentrix and Bruce Prime, IBM retired.
Fundamentals of Adhesion Science. June 24-26, 2013. John Dillard, Garth Wilkes and David Dillard, Virginia Tech.
Injection Molding Fundamentals. October 28-30, 2013. Lawrence Schmidt, LR Schmidt and Associates.
Statistics for Quality. May 13-16, 2014. Anand Joglekar, Joglekar Associates.
Basics of Polymer Science. June 2-3, 2015. Shaw Ling Hsu, Alan Lesser and Bryan Coughlin, UMass. Polymeric Membranes for Water Purification and Energy Applications. June 4, 2015. Shaw Ling Hsu, Alan Lesser and Bryan Coughlin, UMass.
Pressure Sensitive Adhesives Fundamentals. November 10 and 11, 2016. Tim Long, Va Tech; Deepak Hariharan and Don Herr, Adhesives Research; Ed Hortelano, Loparex; and Allan Larkin, Fralock/Lockwood Industries.
Failure Analysis of Plastics. March 5-6, 2018. Jeffrey Jansen and Eric Foltz, The Madison Group.
Microscopy of Polymers: with Applications in Medical Devices and Pharmaceuticals. May 7- 8, 2019. Steven Goodman, Microscopy Innovations, LLC.
Polymers in Electronic Packaging. November 4-5, 2019. Jeff Gotro, Innocentrix and Bruce Prime, IBM retired.
Introduction to Polymer Science and Engineering. June 8-9, 2020. Gary Wnek, Case Western Reserve University.
Polymeric Materials for Additive Manufacturing (3-Day Live Virtual Short Course presented by Prof. T. Long, Arizona State University; Prof. C. Williams and Prof. M. Bortner, Virginia Tech) (March 29, 2021)
Adhesion Science: Principles and Practice (3-Day Live Virtual Short Course presented by Prof. T. Long, ASU; Prof. D. Dillard, Prof. M. Bortner, Virginia Tech; Dr. G. Dillingham, BTG Labs) (October 26, 2021)
Polymers For Medical Applications (2-Day Live Virtual Short Course by Dr. Subbu Venkatraman, UC San Diego) (November 2, 2022)
Polymeric Foams and Latticed Architectures: Enabling Dematerialization with Performance (2.5 Day Live Virtual Short Course by Profs. T. Long, B. Moore, J. DeSimone, R, Zhang) (September 9, 2024)
GGPF 25th Anniversary Symposium & Banquet: From Macro to Nano
October 23 & 24, 2005
Embassy Suites, Burlingame, CA
The Golden Gate Polymer Forum traces its roots to a symposium held in June 1980, at which attendees enthusiastically endorsed the formation of a local group with a primary focus on polymer characterization. GGPF has evolved over the years and now addresses a broad scope of polymer issues. Over the same time period the size scale of many features and even devices has shrunk from micrometers to nanometers, providing the theme for this symposium. Thank you for joining us in celebrating 25 years of serving the educational and networking needs of Bay Area scientists and engineers with this two-day symposium and banquet.
Symposium Organizers
Bruce Prime and Martha M. Steiner
Session A: Polymers in Energy & the Environment
Chair: John Kerr, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Steve Hamrock, 3M, “The Development of New PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) Fuel Cell Membranes at 3M”
Nitash Balsara, UC Berkeley, “Ion-Containing Block Copolymer Nanostructures”
Tim Merkel, Membrane Technology Research, “Gas Separation Membranes: Current Status and Future Trends”
Jim Sheats, Nanosolar, “Applications of Polymers in Photovoltaics”
Session B: Patterning with Polymers I, from Macro to Micro
Chair: April Baugher, Applied Biosystems
Sue Carter, UC Santa Cruz, “Screen-printing Methods for Patterning Low Cost Fully Printed Polymer-based Light Emitting Displays”
Michael Chabinyc, PARC, “On the Road to Plastic Electronics: Patterning Semiconducting Polymers for Displays”
Arthur L. Chait, EoPlex Technologies, Inc., “High-Volume Print Forming, HVPFÔ; Using Polymer Systems To Manufacture Large Volumes Of Complex Polymer, Metal-Ceramic and Hybrid Components”
Nick Sheridan, Gyricon, “The Gyricon- A MEMS Polymer Display”
Session C: Patterning with Polymers II, from Micro to Nano
Chair: Clayton Henderson, Hitachi Global Storage Systems
Grant Willson, University of Texas, “Dual Damascene by Imprint Patterning of Dielectric Materials”
William P. King, Georgia Institute of Technology, “Nanomanufacturing in Novel Materials using Thermal Processing”
Blake A. Simmons, Sandia National Laboratories, “Design, Fabrication, and Evaluation of Polymeric Microfluidic Devices for the Monitoring and Separation of Water-Borne Pathogens”
Ronald Jones, NIST, “Fidelity and Stability in Nanoscale Polymer Patterning”
Jennifer Lu, Agilent Technologies, “Producing Active Inorganic Nanostructures via Solution and Thin Film Self-assembly of Block Copolymers”
Session D: Biopolymer Materials & Devices
Chair: Lothar Kleiner, Guidant Corporation
Allan Hoffman, University of Washington, “A Perspective on Polymers in Medicine”
Stuart Williams, University of Arizona, “Biomaterial-Directed Tissue Responses: Material Design and Modification”
Subbu Venkatraman, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore, “Biodegradable Polymers: Selected Medical Applications”
Fuh-Wei Tang, Guidant, “Micro and Nano-scale Characterization of Biomaterials and Devices”
[1] Society of Plastics Engineers
[2] There had been a polymer group in the bay area organized by UC Berkeley professor Mitchell Shen, but with his untimely death in 1979 it did not continue.
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