COTTAGE GROVE, MN, February 09, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Charles "Chuck" A. Hodge has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Mr. Hodge enjoyed a fulfilling career in chemical research that spanned 39 years, after which he entered into retirement in 2016. Over the course of his professional journey, he distinguished himself in various roles at Ecolab Inc., an American cleaning company that specializes in industrial cleaning, sanitization, and water treatment services, culminating in his work as a Senior Staff Scientist. Bearing a particular specialization in the area of research and product development, as well as green chemistry, sustainability and product safety. Mr. Hodge garnered a laudable reputation as a problem solver and innovator, developing a combined 200 worldwide patents whose sales value can be measured in the one to two billion dollar range.
Before venturing onto his vocational path, Mr. Hodge graduated from South St. Paul High School in Minnesota, as an inductee of the National Honor Society. He went on to attend Normandale Community College, from which he earned an Associates of Arts with academic honors, and the University of Minnesota, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. Well qualified in his field, he was certified in other disciplines, including managerial skills through Century College and as a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Lauded as a key resource in his area of expertise, much of Mr. Hodge's career centered on analytics, divisional product development, technology transfer, and cross functional, corporate technology expansion, which included green chemistry and sustainability.
Initially joining the staff of Ecolab as a member of the Consumer Product Development Lab in 1977, Mr. Hodge gained valuable experience working on and improving upon key products such as Lime Away hard water cleaner, Electrasol and Finish auto dishwasher detergents, Rinse Dry rinse aids, and numerous all purpose cleaners. In this capacity, he worked on development of new agglomeration systems for auto dishwash, evaluating new, in-house defoamer and surfactant systems for powder and liquid products, competitive evaluation, and collaborating with affiliated machine vendors to ensure that these products were matched with their existing and new machine designs. Following this period, he transferred to and eventually supervised Inorganic Analytical Services, where he was a key player to help guide and expand the instrumentation and services portion of the lab for R&D. This included increasing the output of operations from water analysis to include detergent, oil, and waste-water analysis by implementing and expanding upon new instrumentation such as ICP, atomic absorption, graphite furnace, auto analyzer, and low pressure liquid chromatography. Mr. Hodge was nominated for an excellence award at Ecolab for these efforts.
Recognizing his reputation as a problem solver, Mr. Hodge was subsequently promoted to Ecolabs Institutional Division, the largest business division inside the company at that time. Among his other duties there, he helped to launch the new Oasis product line for Housekeeping, whose successful launch helped him earn an Ecolab team award. During this time, Mr. Hodge also helped launch other products, including Ecoshine and Medallion Stainless Steel Cleaners, First Impression Brass Cleaner, Lemon Lift, a chlorine stable, all purpose cleaner, and redesigned versions of Clean N Smooth liquid hand cleaners. It was during this time that Mr. Hodge came up with the foaming hand soap concept, which is now used by numerous industrial liquid hand soap companies as an anchor for their product lines. Another proud moment for Mr. Hodge was streamlining a new process to help move Institutional from a United States to North American Division for development, regulatory, and labeling purposes. This was very gratifying as it combines strong, technical formulary experience along with effective communication between divisional, regulatory, labeling, and marketing to achieve results.
Showing an initial prowess for international management, analytical, and product maintenance skills, Mr. Hodge was handpicked to help Operations open the company's new plant operations in Thailand. This plant combined existing product lines from Ecolab and those from their Henkel Joint Venture. This attracted the attention of his employers, and eventually he transferred to the International Institutional Division of Ecolab. Mr. Hodge was not only responsible for new product launches but his job was required to transfer new technologies by traveling to local regions such as China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, etc. to accomplish his work.
There he was responsible for the company's first attempts at global product launching; Ecostar, a color coded laundry product line and Oasis Compac, a color coded housekeeping line with standard packaging. At this time, he and his team were able to develop and launch the company's sugar solid concept, which can be used for local production of solid cast products, which at that time, helped to minimize phosphate reversion and improve overall product performance. He was also able to launch and adapt Solid Crystal, a new food grade rinse aid for the Japanese market by developing a novel test kit required for installation. His team was also able to launch a concentrated, pot and pan detergent concept, Oasis Compac Pot n Pan, for the Japan market. This product thickens at very high dilutions, which allows significant cost savings through reduced packaging and shipping reduction. This was extended to the US market for the Clean and Smooth concentrated, liquid hand cleaner concept.
Due to Mr. Hodge's unique background, he went on to join Ecolab's corporate development group, which handles many concept phase 1 and 2 projects. It was during this time that due to his extensive expertise with raw materials, he was called upon to join the strategic supplier program that was used to partner technology to these projects. Among his contributions, his team aided the development and launch of the company's global fabric softener and glass cleaner platforms. This included development of a novel fabric softener technology that works well when washed with caustic based detergents, yet maintains its softness and fragrance. This included development of new test procedures used for and evaluation of fabric softness. It was during this time that Mr. Hodge also found a suitable re-formulation replacement needed for the removal of triclosan, the key active agent and bad actor typically used in liquid and foaming antibacterial hand soaps at that time.
It was during his time in corporate development that Mr. Hodge also started and led the first version of the green core competency team, which was necessitated by the growing need for green and biobased products required by some customers. This team initially handled DFE (Design for Environment) and Green Seal certification for the growing contract sales division. Later, it was quickly expanded to include and become a corporate, supply chain, regulatory, and divisional effort for green chemistry and sustainability. One of Mr. Hodges green belt projects was used to start and develop a process used for removal of bad actors and raw materials from the company's product and supply chain. Based on Mr. Hodges formulation knowledge, his interaction with key vendors, and his green chemistry connections, he was chosen as to key technical lead to help the divisional efforts to formulate out of bad actors such as NPEs (nonylphenol ethoxylates) formaldehyde, etc.
As his career wound down, his team spent extensive time looking at ways of minimizing spray bottle mists (for healthier inhalation), and developing novel, non-animal tests ways of evaluating skin and eye irritation (minimize skin and eye irritation). This is particularly important when using and breathing and exposure to harsh chemicals such as acids and strong alkaline cleaners that require broad range, spraying applications. Several anti-mist technologies, in addition to what Ecolab developed in the past, were developed and are still used today. In addition, low misting sprayer technology is now the preferred method for users today.
During the course of his career, Mr. Hodge was a member of the American Oil Chemist Society and the American Chemical Society, as well as the Household & Commercial Products Association. He was also a member of, and participated with, the Center for Surface Science, Green Chemistry Engineering Conference and the ACI Green Chemistry Formulators Round Table. He also, at one time or another, served as company interface with DFE (Design for Environment), Green Seal, and GEMI (Green Environmental Management Initiative).
In accounting for his success, Mr. Hodge largely credits his extensive experience and background in formulation knowledge, his networking to strategic suppliers, leveraging green chemistry inputs from key government and non-government organizations (such as DFE, ACI, USDA bio-based, etc.), and listening to key customer needs, as helping to help guide his career path. He would also like to thank Ecolab, a progressive company, for allowing job rotation to help build career opportunities. Likewise, he attributes his keen ability to work well with and influence others such as his peers, regulatory, business, suppliers, and government organizations to be an effective leader. Now retired, Mr. Hodge continues to contribute expertise through mentorship (ie., Kids and Chemistry and Higher Education) and acts as a private consultant for and on behalf of the industrial and institutional cleaning industry.
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