Solmax continues a trend of big moves, this time announcing that industry veteran Eric Blond is the company’s new Global Technical Director. Blond brings nearly 25 years of geotechnical engineering experience, much of which has focused on geosynthetics testing and research.
In his two decades with Group CTT’s geosynthetics division (SAGEOS), Eric Blond worked with private practitioners, university researchers, government agencies, and manufacturers on a broad range of initiatives. He served on international standards committees. And, he carved out a strong reputation for fairness and technical acumen.
ERIC BLOND & SOLMAX
Eric Blond was at ASTM Committee D35 meetings in Denver the first week of June when his contract with Solmax officially began.
“I believe we will be able to expand the market through innovation and by promoting Solmax’ high quality standards, while helping to solve our customers’ most pressing containment and protection engineering challenges,” Blond said. ““I am excited to join Solmax at a time of ambitious change.”
Change is certainly a state that Solmax knows well and, in general, cultivates. The company began as a small geosynthetic installation company more than 35 years ago and today is the world’s largest manufacturer of geomembranes. That path has been created through a company culture that not only encourages new ideas but challenges team members to pursue them.
In taking a position with a manufacturer after so many years of independent research and testing, Blond gets a unique opportunity to explore the manufacturing and innovation side of the field from the inside.
For the Solmax team, he adds much more than another Master’s degree in Geotechnical Engineering. He is an invited Lecturer at École Polytechnique de Montreal, a widely published author, conference speaker, and a trainer.
His international committee work includes standards development and professional organizations dedicated to geotechnical engineering, geosynthetics, and related industries. This organizations include the Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS), International Geosynthetics Society (IGS), ASTM Committee D35 on Geosynthetics, and ISO TC221 on Geosynthetics.
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“I am delighted to welcome Eric to our senior leadership team,” said Mathieu Cornellier, Vice President Technical Services & Business Development at Solmax. “Eric’s expertise in design, material specification, and performance assessment of several hundreds of projects involving geosynthetics combined with our collaboration in the past, will provide us with the technical leadership needed to drive our growth ambitions in the geosynthetics space.”
LOOKING AHEAD
In a late 2017 interview with Geosynthetica, Solmax CEO Jean-Louis Vangeluwe referred to Solmax’s culture of trust and support to pursue innovations and new initiatives.
“If we fail, we fail together,” Vangeluwe said. “If we win, we win together.”
The addition of Eric Blond to Solmax’s global team is another step along what has been a path of steady successes.
Learn more about Solmax’s geosynthetics, innovations, and engineering expertise at www.solmax.com.
