Germany-based Wacker Chemie AG and its Adrian, Mich.-based North American subsidiary Wacker
Chemicals Corp. recently broke ground on a new headquarters facility to house its Wacker Polymers
America operations. The new facility is located in the Lehigh Valley/Allentown, Pa., area.
“The 67,000-square-foot facility is being designed to house both research and development and
applications testing laboratories, with about two-thirds of the space being devoted primarily to
product, application and market development, with the remaining one-third of the space assigned to
sales and marketing and business support functions,” said John Tacca, vice president, Polymers
Division USA. “The company expects us to occupy the facility sometime late in the summer of 2009.”
Wacker decided to build the new facility after it acquired Air Products Polymers and Wacker
Polymer Systems — its two former joint ventures with Air Products and Chemicals Inc. — earlier this
year.
The headquarters will focus on developing environmentally friendly dispersions, binders,
polymer additives and dispersible powders for construction chemicals, coatings, adhesives, paints,
plasters, nonwoven textiles and other applications.
November 18, 2008
