President John E. Erskine has announced the appointment of Michael Batzner as sales manager for the Blancett Flow Metering Equipment Division of Racine Federated Inc., Racine, Wis. Batzner will be responsible for all Blancett sales activities and will report to Dominic Cariello, general manager of the company.

William J. French has been appointed CEO for Elementis Specialties, Inc., Hightstown, N.J. French previously held the position of vice president of Elementis Specialties' Coatings, Inks, Construction, Ceramics & Water Treatment group.

In addition, Elementis Specialties has hired Amanda Polacek as its new Midwestern sales representative, based in Chicago.

BASF has appointed David A. Grimes account manager for BASF's Chrysler account, completing a series of top-level management appointments in BASF's Automotive OEM Coatings Solutions business in North America. Grimes will report to Jeffrey A. Leone, who was named in late-2004 as BASF's global account director for Ford, and NAFTA account director for DaimlerChrysler, Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

Ultra Additives, LLC, Bloomfield, N.J., has appointed Chris Henkee to the newly created position of technical director for the coatings, adhesives and printing ink markets. Dr. Henkee will promote Ultra's products mainly throughout the Indochina region, specifically Thailand and Vietnam, as well as in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. He will also support Matthew Chen, president of Münzing Shanghai Ltd., and assume full sales and marketing responsibility for the countries of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Ultra Additives has also named Joel Schwartz to R&D director. Schwartz will be responsible for applied research, new product development and product advances in defoamers and other additives formulated for paint and coatings.

Another addition to Ultra's R&D team is Stephanie Charsky as a research chemist.

CARON Products & Services, Inc., Marietta, Ohio, has appointed Steve Keiser chairman of the board of directors. In addition, Dave Figel has joined the company as director of engineering.

Dowd and Guild Inc. has hired Patrick Kelly for responsibilities in sales, principal recruitment and new market development. He will be based in the corporate offices in San Ramon, Calif.

Velsicol Chemical Co., Chicago, has made Ross H. McMillan president. He succeeds Arthur R. Sigel, who will continue in a non-executive role for six months. Sigel will also serve on a continuing basis as a member of the board of directors.

Juan Carlos Ordonez has been named vice president of the BASF Automotive Refinish Solutions business unit in North America, headquartered in Southfield, Mich. He will be responsible for all aspects of BASF's automotive refinish coatings business in Canada, Mexico and the United States. He replaces Albert Winterman, who retired as vice president of the Refinish business in April 2005.

Oliver Schmitt will move from Malvern Instruments GmbH in Germany to the company's headquarters in the U.K. to assume the role of business line manager, Process Systems.

After the acquisition of the ECKART Group as the fourth division of ALTANA Chemie AG, Wesel, Germany, Dr. Wolfgang Schütt has succeeded Dr. Christoph Schlünken and will head the Electrical Insulation division as managing director of ALTANA Electrical Insulation GmbH. As a result, Schütt will become a member of the executive management team of ALTANA Chemie AG. Schlünken will head the new Effect Pigments division as chairman of the management board of the ECKART group (see page 22).

Maroon Inc., Avon, Ohio, has appointed Keith Stricker account manager, Eastern Michigan. Stricker has more than 27 years of experience in the specialty chemicals industry and is the founder of Stricker Paint.