Citation
(2004), "Thomas Sullivan receives NPCA's Heckel Award", Pigment & Resin Technology, Vol. 33 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/prt.2004.12933aab.021
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Thomas Sullivan receives NPCA's Heckel Award
Thomas Sullivan receives NPCA's Heckel Award
Thomas C. Sullivan, Chairman and retired CEO of RPM International Inc., received the NPCA's highest honor, the George Baugh Heckel Award, at the NPCA's Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL. The award recognizes “contributions towards a major industry success for the advancement of an NPCA goal”.
During Sullivan's 2-year term as NPCA chairman, the association negotiated a landmark industry agreement with the attorneys general of most of the states that establishes a lead-exposure container-label and sticker program and an education and training program involving potential lead hazards from remodeling and painting activities. The NPCA says the agreement “removed the impetus for state-sponsored litigation on the lead-paint issue”. Also under Sullivan's leadership, the NPCA has energetically joined the campaign for asbestos-litigation reform. Sullivan joined RPM's predecessor company, Republic Powder Metals, in 1961 as a divisional sales manager after 2 years of military service aboard the USS Braine. He was elected RPM vice-president in 1967, executive vice-president in 1969, and was president and CEO from 1971 until retiring from those positions in 2002. RPM grew to become a major global manufacturer of specialty coatings under Sullivan's direction.
Sullivan was named “CEO of the decade” by Financial World magazine, and received a Business Statesman Award from the Harvard Business School Club of Cleveland. He also received the Anti-Defamation League's David H. Litter Humanitarian Award for service to his company, industry and community. Sullivan and his wife, Sandra, recently formed a philanthropic family foundation that has been transferred to the diocese of their church.