Katherine Hacek has 28 years of experience in the coatings industry, starting with Valspar as a formulating chemist in ECoat and Coil coatings before moving into technical support at BASF. Returning to Valspar and moving to Shanghai, China, she became the R&D Director for Coil and Extrusion coatings. After repatriation, and a role as International Market manager for Coil, she made a career shift into rigid metal packaging as Material Manager for food can/end linings for Crown Holdings, at the critical period of determining BPA alternatives. Katherine returned to her coating formulation roots with Nexeo/Univar Solutions spending eight years as Application Development Specialist in the CASE market.  She is currently the Market Manager of CASE for Colonial Chemical, Inc. a producer of specialty and green surfactants.

Katherine has a BA in Chemistry from Illinois State University and an MS in Chemistry with a Polymer Specialization from DePaul University. She is also Past President of the Chicago Society for Coatings Technology, Co-Chair of the Windy City Coatings Course and active in various other regional chapters. She resides in Chicago but still travels extensively.