HAPPI - January 2016

It’s All About

TEAMWORK

Collaboration was the theme of the Consumer Specialty Products
Association 2015 annual meeting.

NEARLY 500 industry executives gathered under cloudy skies in Fort Lauderdale at the Harbor Beach Marriott last month for the Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA) annual meeting. Billed as Collaboration 2015, the event served as a hub for formulators, marketers, retailers and researchers for“collaborative opportunities”to liaise with federal, state and local legislative officials in a general session, division sessions and workshops.

Blasting Off

Collaboration 2015 officially kicked off with“a true rocket man,”
which is how CSPA president Chris Cathcart described keynote
speaker Adam Steltzner. His presentation, “Rock Stars, Rocket
Scientists and the Power of Curiosity,” told his story of an aspir-
ing bass player, who after observing the stars of Orion decided
to embark on a journey that would lead him to a PhD in engi-
neering and by age 35, a job as one of NASA’s top engineers,
before culminating in a mission to Mars! Since then, he’s been
awarded honors ranging from the Smithsonian’s American
Ingenuity Award in technology, to GQ magazine’s Spaceman of
the Year. His new book, “The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of
Teamwork, Leadership and High Stakes Innovation” will be re-
leased this month.

“You never really know where curiosity will take us,” Steltzner told the audience. He promoted the benefits of utilizing human curiosity and incorporating this passion for learning into working well with others—aka teamwork, the theme of 2015’s CSPA conference. For 10 years, Steltzner led a team of engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories inventing, designing, testing and retesting the revolutionary“sky crane” landing system that successfully placed the Curiosity rover on the Martian surface in 2012.

“It was about embracing risk,” he said of making a mission to space. Five times heavier than its predecessors, Curiosity required an entirely new landing system for the perilous seven-minute phase when the one-ton rover—entering Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph—must land on the surface. Now, the JPL team is planning a mission to Europa, one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter.

“The quality of the teamwork is reflected in the quality of the product,” said Steltzner. “When we explore, we ask ourselves what is our potential? Overall, the most paramount is to be curious. With human curiosity and the culture of collaboration, there is no limit to what we can do!”

Main Assembly

Collaboration was top of mind for CSPA chairman Paul Siracusa, too.

“This week, we will focus on the importance of working with
the many partners involved in getting safe and effective products
to market,” said Siracusa. “We’ll have competitors, customers, re-
tailers, regulators and NGOs around the tables and I, for one,
look forward to hearing what everyone has to say.”
In 2015, the association added 22 new member companies
and Siracusa thanked the“hundreds of volunteers” who serve as
board, division, committee and task force members.

“You are the hardworking leaders of this association who, in addition to your fulltime jobs, make time for CSPA. As I complete my second year as chairman of this organization, I realize the enormous contributions many of you make to the betterment of the consumer and institutional products industry,” he said.