Date: 18 July 2019
At the Glass Performance Days (GPD) event in 2017, the Jorma Vitkala Award of Merit was introduced to recognize outstanding individual contributions to the glass industry. This award was presented to Jorma Vitkala himself as the first-ever recipient at GPD’s 25th Anniversary event. Every two years, this award will now be granted during each GPD opening ceremony to a new recipient who has been selected through an international nomination procedure.
One of the highlights of the GPD opening ceremony, held last Wednesday June 26th in Tampere, was the announcement of the recipient for the 2019 JORMA VITKALA AWARD OF MERIT.
Arto Metsänen, CEO & President of Glaston, and Jean-Paul Hautekeer, Global Marketing Director at Dow and chairman of the nomination committee, maintained the suspense for some minutes on the stage of the GPD conference, to explain why this award was created and its selection process before revealing the final top 10 candidates.
With a great deal of emotion, James O’Callaghan, co-Founder and Senior Director at EOC, was asked onto the stage to receive the award, presented by Jorma Vitkala, who is chairing his last GPD Conference.
“James’s impressive leadership and influence in Architectural Glass is undeniable since he and Brian Eckersley founded EOC in 2004, with a shared vision of a structural design practice that truly integrates engineering and architecture. While James is now a serial collector of awards in the engineering and architectural space, this recognition of the entire Global Glass Industry has a special meaning for him” said Jorma Vitkala.
“Continued innovative progress and bold new solutions will keep the applications of glass at the forefront for designers, industries and research institutions, and provide us with effective competitiveness in the choices of materials and solutions for building, automotive and interior decorating. This award is our special tribute to leading contributors in the development of the glass industry and James is a real personification of the GPD spirit.” added Arto Metsänen.
“As well as the winner, the nominees who made it into the top 10 were also revealed. These leaders are seen as some of the key influencers of our glass industry by the press and the public in 2019 through this award nomination process” concluded Jean-Paul Hautekeer “Congratulations to all of them, they all should be proud of their achievements”.
James Carpenter - Carpenter Design Associates
Tim Macfarlane - Glass ltd
Gérard Savineau - Consultant (Former Solutia)
Valerie L. Block - Kuraray
Graham Dodd - ARUP
Francis Serruys - Saint-Gobain
Julia Schimmelpennigh - Eastman
Norbert Wruk - NSG
Larry Carbary - DOW
Last but not least, we would like to thank the international press and the sponsors that supported the award and contributed during the process. As always, GPD is all about collaboration so it is great that this award was also realized with the same mindset.
Our sincere thanks go to:
Jorma Vitkala - Glaston
Horst Mertes - Fene Tech
Katy Devlin - Glass Magazine
Maja Weller - Evguard
Matthias Rehberger - Glasswelt
Katarina Rehar - Glassonweb.com
Robert Miklus - Formator Ltd
Klaus Muehlhans - A+W Software
Werner Wagner - Sika
Reinhold Kober - GFF Magazine
Nick Beaumont - IGS Magazine
Luc Moyersons - Everlam
Christoph Troska - Kuraray
Wim Stevels - Eastman
Patrick Flannery - Glass Canada
Marco Groothoff - Glas in Beeld
Bettina Heuter - Glassglobal Group
Debra Levy - Glass.com
Jean-Paul Hautekeer - Dow
As the planning for the next GPD 2021 conference starts, the same process will be applied for this award moving forward.
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