During the honors luncheon of its 120th annual meeting, NPCA presented Charles E. Bennett, CEO of Cook Composites and Polymers, with the George Baugh Heckel Award, the association’s highest honor.

Bennett has spent much of his life devoted to the industry, beginning in 1979 with a position at Guardsman Products. He held various positions at Guardsman, and was CEO and president upon his departure in 1996. At that time, he founded Polymer Products, Inc., a company that manufactured coatings resins. Two years later, he sold the company took his current position of CEO at Cook Composites and Polymers in Kansas City.

Bennett’s involvement with NPCA has been extensive, including stints on the membership committee, Coatings Care committee, budget and finance committee, chairman of the industrial coatings committee, and more than ten years on NPCA’s board of directors.