CAMX Announces Speakers for its 2017 General Session

[alert type=blue] CAMX has been rescheduled for December 12-14, 2017. Click here for the full update.[/alert] Note: The article below has been updated to reflect the updated date and line-up.  CAMX – The Composites and Advanced Materials Expo, widely considered North America’s premier composites event co-produced by the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA) and the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE), has announced the speakers for its general session. The session’s CAMX Live! panel, which will open the show Tuesday, December 12, 2017 in Orlando, Fla., will be centered on disruptive innovation – a term generally associated with the creation of new markets or disruptions in existing markets by displacing market leaders. This year, Boom Technology Aerostructures Engineer Kerry Manning, Composites Building Structures President/CEO James Antonic, and Oracle Team USA Designer Kurt Jordan will be speaking. According to ACMA and SAMPE, these speakers will provide examples of how their companies are creating disruptive innovation in multiple markets by thinking about designing and creating in new ways to make radical changes to products and the industry. "I believe this year’s General Session illustrates that composites and advanced materials are truly making an impact everywhere you look – in the air, on the ground and across the ocean,” added ACMA President Tom Dobbins. “We want to show that composites aren’t just innovative, they’re essential to developing new technologies that influence positive change in the world.” Manning is a professional engineer who graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2001.  He joined Adam Aircraft, where he became the lead engineer on the composite wing structure, seeing the A500 through certification.  He was appointed a Part 23 DER for the design and construction of composite structures and a candidate for lightning direct effects and continued at Adam to lead the design of the A700 fuselage, wing and fuel tanks.  He then joined Abengoa Solar where he led a mechanical design team responsible for the company’s R&D efforts.  There he developed large, optical-quality, composite reflectors for use in utility-scale Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants and the associated manufacturing line to produce more than 200,000 units per year.  He has over a dozen patents and in 2015 he built and raced the world's fastest electric truck. He is now the lead on aircraft structures for Boom Technology, which recently unveiled the completed design of the XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator, the subscale prototype of a composite-intensive, supersonic passenger airliner. When it flies next year, the XB-1 will be the world’s fastest civil aircraft, and it will demonstrate in flight the key technologies for mainstream supersonic travel. Antonic describes his work as “creating a new paradigm in building and construction.” For the past 15 years, he and his company have developed sustainable parts to replace wood, steel and concrete and assembled into custom buildings serving two markets: disaster resistant buildings and low-cost social housing. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Antonic spread awareness of his company’s fiberglass building system that can withstand 300 mph winds. The technology was featured in a 2005 New York Times article and has led to license and joint ventures supported by 39 U.S. patents issued and additional U.S. and foreign patents pending. Jordan has engineered composite Yachts for the last eight Americas Cup’s, the last two for the Oracle Team USA, and including the winning team in 2007 and 2013. Oracle Team USA’s use of composites has paved the way for the materials to become a staple for building foiling catamaran’s for the America’s Cup. To attend the panel session, register for CAMX today at http://www.thecamx.org/registration/.