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SMC Automotive Alliance Announces Major Organizational Changes

19 May 1998

SMC Automotive Alliance Announces Major Organizational Changes

    TROY, Mich., May 18 -- The SMC Automotive Alliance (SMCAA)
today announced two major organizational changes that will become effective
June 1.  They are:

    *  The SMCAA will be named the Automotive Composites Alliance (ACA),
serving the automotive and truck industries

    *  The Association will be structured as a division of the Composites
Fabricators Association

    "The structural changes are designed to broaden our scope to better
promote the advantages and innovations of all composite materials to the
automotive and truck industries," says Don Kossak, ACA chairman and director
of exterior sales at Cambridge Industries.
    "Much of what is driving the decision to change our name, is the change in
our industry -- from offering one or two materials options to representing a
myriad of materials and processes designed to meet our customers' unique cost
and delivery requirements.  There's already interest in joining the new group
on the part of several molders and suppliers of composite materials.
    The organization will be structured under the Composites Fabricators
Association (CFA), a Virginia-based composites association.  For the past ten
years the Alliance has functioned as a division of the Society of the Plastics
Industry's Composites Institute.  "As part of this reorganization, our members
believe that we'll be better served as a division of the CFA," says Kossak.
"Its focus is solely composites which means that regulatory issues and
promotional efforts will be addressed as a united industry."
   Fred Dierks, CFA president, stated that, "the CFA is pleased to have the
Automotive Alliance join the Association."  He indicated "the CFA is expanding
its scope of services to most effectively represent the need of composites
professionals and to assure the industry is able to speak as a unified body to
regulators, customers, and manufacturers of competing materials."
   The Automotive Composites Alliance (formerly the SMCAA), was established in
1988.  Based in Troy, MI, the association is comprised of 25 composite molders
and plastic materials suppliers that provide the automotive industry with
composite body panels, interior trim and engine and structural components.