This article is adapted from IAPD Vice President Hayden Hess’ speech delivered at the Thursday General Session during the 70th IAPD Annual Convention in Atlanta on October 1, 2026.

s I begin my term as IAPD President, I want to share with all our member companies, whether you joined us in Atlanta for the 2026 IAPD Annual Convention or followed from afar, what comes next for our Association.

At our annual convention, outgoing President Jim Richards outlined IAPD’s Strategic Transformation Roadmap and where we are going.

I want to highlight three pieces of that transformation becoming real: PerformancePlastics.org, our new IAPD University microlearning curriculum and the 2027 IAPD Performance Plastics Conference.

PerformancePlastics.org

Let’s start with PerformancePlastics.org.

I want to again remind you of the important distinction between the two websites:

IAPD.org serves the Association.

PerformancePlastics.org serves and positions the industry.

That’s why you won’t see IAPD branding throughout the new external focused site. It’s designed for the people we want to reach outside our membership, including distributors’ customers, end users, students, job seekers, educators, sustainability professionals and others who need to better understand performance plastics.

Convention attendees received an early look at the new platform.

PerformancePlastics.org launches in November 2026.

The message on the homepage is simple:

Performance Plastics Make Modern Life Possible.
From there, visitors can explore three major areas:

• Materials & Applications
• Sustainability
• Careers in Performance Plastics

The Materials section takes the framework many of us know from the IAPD Thermoplastics Rectangle and translates it for a broader audience.

We’re helping people understand the families of performance plastics, their characteristics, their applications and what these materials make possible.

We’re not assuming people already understand our industry.

We’re teaching them.

We are also driving them to our member companies.

The site features searchable directories for finding distributors, fabrication services, materials and sustainable materials. All of which are IAPD members. While teaching them how to use the distribution supply chain.

The Sustainability section explains common sustainability terminology, sustainable material options, recycling and real applications where performance plastics can be the sustainable choice by design.

And this is where we need your help.

We’ve been asking for sustainable application examples for about nine months.

We’ve received about six.

I know there are far more examples across our membership.

And we’re not asking for a whitepaper.

We just need the example.

Tell us the application, the performance plastic and why it was the sustainable choice by design.

Maybe it extended service life. Reduced corrosion. Reduced weight. Lowered maintenance.

Whatever the example is, give it to us and let IAPD help develop the story.

Talk to your salespeople, engineers and technical teams.

We don’t need you to write the story. We need you to help us find it.

The Careers section introduces people to the opportunities throughout our industry.

It includes profiles of common positions across distribution, fabrication and manufacturing, along with videos highlighting both Professional Careers in Performance Plastics and Skilled Trades in Performance Plastics.

We want people to understand what kinds of jobs exist here, what the work looks like and whether there might be a career in this industry for them.

And the site doesn’t just educate people.

It gives them a way to connect with the industry.

There are two primary search experiences.

If someone is looking for materials or capabilities, they can search by distributor, family of plastics, trade name, manufacturer, fabrication services or sustainable polymers.

At the same time, we’re educating end users about the performance plastics distribution supply chain and how to source these materials through distribution.

If someone is looking for a career, they can geographically search for companies in the industry and connect directly to those companies and, where available, directly to their careers pages.

The companies behind these searches are IAPD member companies, even though the experience isn’t branded that way.

So, whether someone is looking for performance plastics or looking for a career in performance plastics:

The site doesn’t just tell them about our industry. It gives them a way to connect with it.

But here’s the most important thing to understand:

The website is not the strategy.

It’s the vehicle.

In November, alongside the website launch, we’ll also begin external social media campaigns around Careers in Performance Plastics and the Sustainability of Performance Plastics.

IAPD creates the campaigns and industry-level messaging.

Our Marketing Committee helps guide the strategy and mobilize participation.

And then we need you.

When you see our LinkedIn posts, repost them.

When we publish sustainability content, share it.

When your company posts an application story, use our campaign hashtags.

Link to Careers in Performance Plastics from your recruiting pages.

Link to PerformancePlastics.org from your websites.

Because our members collectively have something IAPD will never have on its own:

Reach.

An IAPD post reaches our audience.

That same message amplified by dozens, or eventually hundreds, of member companies and employees can reach customers, engineers, students, job seekers, educators and communities.

That’s the power behind the strategy.

IAPD provides the platform.

Members provide the reach.

Together, we can create an industry-sized voice.

Jim also outlined our enhanced IAPD University, its new learning management system (LMS) and the larger education strategy at the annual convention.

Here, I want to focus on what is available now and what is coming next.

Our first microlearning course is:

Understanding the IAPD Thermoplastics Rectangle.

This is the prerequisite and orientation for the new materials curriculum we’re building.

Historically, much of IAPD’s technical education has been packaged into larger, comprehensive courses.

We’re now breaking that technical knowledge into shorter, focused microlearning courses organized around the major families of plastics.

The curriculum begins with a foundation in the major families of thermoplastics.

The first three courses: Understanding the IAPD Thermoplastics Rectangle, Amorphous Commodity Thermoplastics and Amorphous Engineering Plastics, will be completed this year.

The remaining families will roll out as we continue building the curriculum.

The idea is simple:

Shorter, focused learning that is easier to fit into the workday and more relevant to what an employee actually needs to know.

And this is just the beginning.

Over time, we’ll use the same microlearning approach for other needs members have identified, including manufacturing and machining, sales and business development, communication and professional skills, leadership and management, and other role-specific education.

I encourage you to take a look at the Thermoplastics Rectangle course.

Share it with your employees.

And as these courses roll out, help us take IAPD University deeper into your organization.

This is where the education strategy starts becoming real.

Jim also introduced the direction of our annual gathering at the annual convention.

I want every member to remember three things:

November 8 – 10, 2027.
Scottsdale, Arizona.
IAPD Performance Plastics Conference.

This is more than a new name.

We’re changing the experience.

Business development and Private Supplier Meetings remain at the center.

But we’re building a stronger conference around them:
Business Development + Strategic Intelligence + Education + Networking + Community + Industry Celebration

You’ll see the beginning of the new Exhibit Marketplace, integrated into the outdoor walkways, meals and breaks rather than isolated in a ballroom.

We’ll begin broadening that marketplace in 2027 and continue evolving it over several years.

You’ll see new industry and market roundtables where members can exchange intelligence about what they’re seeing in their businesses and markets.

You’ll see open spaces, patios and outdoor gathering areas where conversations can happen naturally.

You’ll see golf, more social gatherings and informal networking.

And we want the conference to celebrate this industry, its people, its companies and the innovations and applications of performance plastics.

Because the goal isn’t to take away the business.

It’s to rebuild the community around the business.

And that part is especially important to me.

I’m an independent distributor and part of the Independent Distributor + Fabricator Roundtable.

Throughout my years in IAPD, some of the greatest value I’ve received hasn’t come from a program or presentation.

It’s come from the friendships and relationships I’ve built here.

We still feel that community in the Roundtables.

At the golf tournaments.

At Women in Plastics events.

Around the IAPD Board and Executive Committee table.

But somewhere along the way, our annual convention became a little more corporate and a little less communal.

We became really good at meetings.

Supplier meeting. Customer meeting. Breakfast meeting. Lunch meeting. Dinner meeting.

And, as Susan Avery likes to say, somewhere in between there’s usually some rubber steak and chicken surprise.

We’ve become incredibly efficient at doing business together.

It’s time to reconnect.

That’s what excites me about Scottsdale.

I want a new member to walk into the Performance Plastics Conference and feel like they belong.

I want the conversations over breakfast, on the golf course, at the bar, out on a patio or walking between meetings to be as much a part of the IAPD experience as anything happening behind a meeting-room door.

Because those conversations become relationships.

Those relationships become friendships.

They become business opportunities.

And over time, they become the community that holds an industry together.

So put it on your calendar:
November 8 – 10, 2027. Scottsdale.

Bring your team.

Come for the business.

Come for the intelligence.

Come to see what’s new in performance plastics.

And come to reconnect with the people who make this industry what it is.

As I step into the presidency, that’s what excites me most about where we’re going.

PerformancePlastics.org only works if our members amplify the message.

IAPD University only works if our companies bring employees into it.

And the Performance Plastics Conference only becomes the industry’s annual gathering if we show up and build the community together.

Let’s make Scottsdale the place where we don’t just conduct business together, but where we belong together.

I couldn’t be more excited to serve as your President.

To every IAPD member company, whether you were with us in Atlanta or not, thank you for your continued commitment to this Association. I can’t wait to build this next chapter of IAPD with all of you.