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Expert has over 25 years experience with bleaching textile materials composed of cotton, flax, wool, polyester and viscose on a full range of equipment including continuous steaming(roller and flatbed), jiggers, pad-batch, jets yarn package, skein and garment laundry. He is an expert in the use of peroxides, hypochlorites, chlorite, persulfates and bisulfites (reductive bleaching). He is well-known for introducing significant process improvement in bleaching which have resulted in significant reductions in chemical costs (up to 60%), cycle times and water consumption while producing higher whiteness indexes and near elimination of color variation in subsequent dyeing processes, which he has proven is related directly to inconsistency in bleaching.

Expert has mastered this area of textiles as a result of years of experience managing fabric testing laboratories. From 1986-1989, he was the Laboratory Manager for the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists which has for 80 years functioned as a "Bureau of Standards" for textile colorfastness and is the most prestigious laboratory in the world with regard to creating, developing and improving standardized colorfastness test methods for rubbing fastness, light fastness, atmospheric contaminants(ozone, oxides of nitrogen, etc), laundering, dry cleaning, heat, perspiration, water and chlorine bleaches. He has presented professional training programs for colorfastness testing for 20 years in the U.S. and 14 foreign countries. He is a respected authority in the measurement of colorfastness samples, both in visual evaluation with Gray Scales and with all standard types of color measuring instruments.

He is also expert in the quality control aspects of color in that he is capable of establishing reliable shade sorting programs such as the "555" system to satisfy the demands of any customer and also is capable of quickly troubleshooting shade programs that are disguise color problems, which is almost always the case in denim, as well as in other fabrics.

He has, in several non-U.S. textile companies, uncovered what appears to be a common fraud perpetrated in the cotton trade involving the adulteration of fiber bales with varying amounts of waste cotton, which have an adverse effect in yarn, which were disposed by cotton yarn and fabric manufacturers. The waste fibers have little or no real economic value and their presence contributes to serious quality and efficiency losses. As an expert textile microscopist, he has been able to demonstrate this fraud, which is otherwise undetectable, with very few textile companies any longer maintaining microscopists. He exposed this problem originally in an Indian textile company in 1995(the factory was shut down because of this and no one in India could recognize the problem)and has found the same problem in other textile companies, most recently 2 in Brazil.

In 1985, while he was responsible for managing cotton blending in Cone Mills, he developed a sophisticated statistical approach to cotton blending that resulted in an overall increase in efficiencies from carding through weaving of approximately 20%. He has achieved similar results in companies in Mexico and Indonesia. He is also expert at determining the money value of cotton with regard to maturity, sugars, cavitoma etc.

He has conducted research, experimentation and production applications in Mercerizing for 20 years. While the process is commonly understood as the application of 20-30% sodium hydroxide to cotton fabrics at room temperature, he has systematically explored the process employing a wide range of temperatures(from 0 to 100 centigrade) and concentrations(from 6 to 50%) to produce scores of performance, surface appearance and dyeing effects with cotton, flax, viscose and wool. The effects include the semi-permanent press finish(flat-finish, popular in denim fabrics, bi-directional stretch fabrics made of 100% cotton and viscose that perform better than fabrics made with synthetics like Spandex, as well as natural fiber fabrics with translucent, transparent and phosphorescent effects. He has also redesigned washing processes for significant water use and improved cleaning as well as methods fornon-polluting neutralization using an acid that can be generated cost-free within any textile operation and that has no safety, environmental or corrosion problems.

Expert is widely considered to be the leading authority on denim finishing, having authored a 40-page manual on the subject that explains how to eliminate all finishing defects, achieve precisely controlled shrinkage results and improve profits by increased fabric yields. He is also expert in all types of stretch denim finishing, including 100% cotton stretch, spandex, polyester and nylon. He has also assisted many companies in the production of flat-finished fabrics that meet the demands of high fashion.

He has approximately 30 years experience in cotton finishing in 24 different textile operations utilizing a broad range of methods and equipment. The methods he is familiar with include the mechanical finishing processes of singing, brushing, compacting, napping, sanding, calendaring, glazing, embossing, beetling and schreinering. In cotton wet-processing of cotton he has excelled in applying the techniques of desizing, scouring, bleaching, Mercerizing, tentering, foam application, ammonia and Sanforizing. He is adept in the particularly complex area of resin finishing, being able to formulate for thermosetting resins including the urea formaldehyde, melamine and low-formaldehyde types for purposes of crease resistance, shrinkage control and improved fabric yield. He is an expert in the use of catalysts for highly alkaline fabrics(latent catalysts) He is uniquely expert with the appropriate use of pre- and post-Mercerization of resin-treated fabrics as well as the use of acid colloids for stiffness control. He has experience in ammonia finishing as well as imitation-ammonian finishing methods. He has enjoyed great success in rapidly eliminating the causes of finishing defects(in one Philippine company, from 20% to 0.3% on denim with a 60% decrease in chemical costs) as well as sources of reprocessing.

He has long been recognized as one of the world's leading authorities in the field of textile chemistry by technical professionals and those in the academic field. He has for 20 years been considered one of the most reliable sources of precise, verifiable and economically valuable details of textile chemistry. He achieved this status as a result of extensive reading research in several languages and by acting as the Laboratory Manager of the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists(1986-1989), where he was able to work on a daily basis with the leading authorities from international dye suppliers, textile chemical auxiliary companies, prominent international textile laboratories and the best of university-level instructors. Recent examples of his international reputation include:
2001: Requested by the United Nations Environmental Program to assist with resolving an environmental crisis in India involving the dye-manufacturing industry. Before a group of distinguished chemical engineers and dye executives, he made a proposal to scrap 80 year-old technology that was the source of pollution with a photo-chemical technology that would be pollution-free, required 95% less energy and almost no water consumption.
2004: Invited to lecture on dye chemistry at Moscow State Textile University.
2007: Interviewed as leading authority on environmental and safety issues involving the textile chemistry of denim manufacturing for a new book, FUGITIVE DENIM by Rachel Louise Snyder, covering 5 pages in the book.

Only a few manufacturers can produce premium denim, but most of them have serious problems with quality and consistency. He has provided product development support that allowed garden-variety suppliers to break into this market. The production costs are almost the same, but the profit margins are at least 1000% higher.

He has an advanced understanding of the science of textile washing processes, both continuous and batch, which results in consistently superior cleaning with greatly reduced water-consumption. He studied surface tension and surfactant chemistry at the graduate level and has a highly sophisticated understanding of wetting agents, dispersants, emulsifiers, colloids and electrolytes with regard to optimal washing. He has designed washing technologies involving principals of fluid mechanics employing differential equations to produce logarithmic increases in washing efficiency.

He has a reputation for having an expertise in textile dyeing equal to any of the leading professionals in the world. He has enjoyed extensive success in improving processes involving sulfur, Indigo, direct, reactive, naphthol, vat, acid, cationic and natural (mordant) dyes. Over a 30 year period he has trained operators and improved operating procedures on a wide range of equipment including package, jet, beck, garment, jigger, skein, pad-batch, pad-steam and Thermosol machinery on 100% cotton, cotton blends, wool, polyester, nylon and acrylics. He studied dye chemistry at the graduate level at North Carolina State University and has for the last 15 years provided on-site courses in textile dyeing, engineering aspects of dye machines and quality assurance of dyeing that are far more practical than those offered by any of the textile schools. He typically can find routes to reduction of dye and chemical costs by a minimum of 30%, up to 80% in some cases.

Nearly all suppliers have severe problems with consistent color regarding indigo dyeing, but he's developed solutions. He has had remarkable achievements in the area of color matching with all dye classes as well as pigments. He has pioneered new processes for cotton dyeing that allow cold dyeing with sulfur dyes that have nearly zero waste and pollution as well as flawless dyeing.

He has worked with textile dyes for over 25 years, both in the research and production areas. He has a reputation internationally regarding the application methods for disperse, sulfur, Indigoid, reactive, naphthol, polycyclic vats, acid, cationic and metal-complex dyes as well as organic and inorganic pigments. He has a high level of expertise in the testing and evaluation of dyes for achieving lowest costs, performance, metamerism and colorfastness. He has identified fraudulent practices by dye vendors and deceptive practices that often result in dye costs that are 100-300% greater than necessary. His mastery of dye chemistry allowed him in 1992 to duplicate in the laboratory the full range of sulfur dyes on the market and develop methods for reducing the cost of using the dyes by 50-80%. He is recognized as a leading authority regarding the environmental and health aspects of textile dyes. Public recognition of this resulted in him being selected by the United Nations Environmental Program in 2001 to assist with an environmental crisis in the Indian dye industry and also extensively quoted in a recent book FUGITIVE DENIM after being referred to the author as being the leading expert on environmental issues related to the denim business.

He has over 25 years experience using reducing agents of the sodium dithionite type(generally referred to as sodium hydrosulfite) for purposes of dyeing vats, Indigo, sulfurs, bleaching and stripping of off-shade textile materials. He has developed methods for buffering solutions of sodium dithionite with chemically different reducing agents that result in overcoming the inherent instability of dithonite especially in Indigo dyeing which is the underlying cause of color variation for dyeing vats, Indigo and sulfurs. These buffering techniques also allow for a 30-50% reduction in the use of sodium dithionite allowing not only big cost savings, but a reduction in water treatment costs, since dithionite is the most significant contributor to COD in concerned operations (0.22). He has also pioneered alternative organic reducing agents to replace dithionite in Indigo and vat dyeing that produce no COD.

He has extensive experience with a wide range of textile auxiliaries over 25 years both in research and manufacturing applications. Among them are surfactants (wetting agents, dispersants, levelers) sequestering agents, fixatives, reducing agents, oxidizers and buffers. He has conducted thousands of experiments with these compounds in order to identify which type and amount would result in the optimal results at the lowest cost. He studied surfactants, softeners, resins and lubricants at the graduate level and has developed his own on-site textile chemistry programs that cover these products in detail. He is expert at the testing and evaluation of auxiliaries and provides precise guidance on selecting the best products, which conditions they are best suited for, the exact amounts needed and low-cost alternatives. He is adept at explaining the environmental and health aspects of these materials and also advising in regards to interpreting claims by vendors as to the usefulness or necessity for using specific auxiliaries.

He has 25 years experience in the manufacture and quality assurance of cotton yarn manufacturing including cotton fiber and yarn testing at an advanced level, scientific cotton blending, opening, carding, combing, drawing, roving, ring spinning, open-end spinning and winding. He has pioneered methods of statistical blending of cotton fiber that use probability to significantly reduce CV's in yarn production, usually resulting in about a 20% increase in productivity from yarn manufacturing through weaving. He has presented on-site training programs that include the mathematics of cotton blending, drafting, gear trains, interpretation of Uster diagrams, twist gearing, production gearing, torque stops, rotor selection, comber rolls, navels, spinning triangles and winding angles. He has an in-depth understanding of the cotton fiber and understands the effects of maturity, micronaire, trash content, contaminants, cavitoma and sugar on production and quality. He is expert at microscopically identifying quality problems with cotton fiber including fraud involving recycles waste in ginning, identifying cavitoma and other biological attacks and measuring precise levels of dead cotton.

He has solid experience in applying themosetting resins for durable-press, wash-and-wear and crease resistant fabrics. He has used urea-formaldehyde, melamine, carbamate, cyclic ureas, amino triazines and the low-formaldehyde types. He has an extensive knowledge of catalysts used for this type of finishing and how to formulate in order to avoid problems with excessive formaldehyde release and curing problems that result in unsatisfactory durable press ratings or in fabric strength loss. He is familiar with methods for quality assurance of fabrics, the chemical resins, catalysts and free formaldehyde testing.

He is a prominent, international denim expert with over 25 years experience in all areas of denim manufacturing, including dyeing, finishing, fabric design, product development and quality assurance. During the last 15 years, he has supplied independent consulting support to more than 10 denim operations in 14 countries including the U.S., India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico and Brazil. He has consistently provided solutions for the most common sources of dissatisfaction with denim fabric including shade consistency, shrinkage, distortion, fabric defects and elongation. His mastery of textile chemistry and fabric structures have allowed his clients to satisfy the high-fashion denim markets, including the Premium Denim users for super dark blacks, discharges, stretch denims, special effects and permanently soft fabrics. He is also highly effective at auditing suppliers and rapidly finding corrective actions for denim fabric deficiencies.

Expert has over 25 years experience in denim product development, including during the last 15 years, as an independent denim consultant providing assistance to over 30 denim operations in 14 countries, including the U.S. He is widely recognized as the leading authority on Indigo dyeing with extensive experience using rope, sheet and loop Indigo dyeing equipment as well as loose-fiber, yarn and piece dyeing with Indigo. In 1990, he pioneered methods for successfully producing earth-tones on denim dyeing equipment, which is also suitable for producing denim in bright school and team colors. He has the scientific expertise to match, quickly, any color on denim. He is a leader in developing the highest-quality stretch denims with synthetic yarns as well as bi-directional stretch fabrics of 100% cotton or viscose that outperform Spandex. He has an intimate knowledge of garment laundry procedures and is adept at coordinating fabric dyeing with laundry procedures to achieve the target results. In the environmental area, he has developed methods for the near-elimination of effluent COD from denim manufacturing by substitution with organic chemicals and recycling of chemical wastes.

He has long been recognized as the world's leading authority for Indigo dyeing. He has over 25 year's experience in Indigo dyeing at leading U.S. companies (Cone, Swift, Graniteville) and has provided technical support to over 30 denim operations in 14 countries during the previous 15 years as a denim consultant. His experience includes Indigo dyeing on all models of continuous yarn ranges(rope, sheet and loop) as well as dyeing fabric with Indigo. He is expert at dyeing all natural fibers with Indigo (cotton, silk, wool, flax) as well as viscose, nylon and polyester. He has been extremely successful in duplicating Indigo shades and washdowns from fabric samples and can match the desired tones(red,green, blue), brightness/dullness, ring dyeing and colorfastness. He has developed methods for special effects such as space dyeing, ozone-proof sky-blue shades of Indigo, very soft yarns even with sulfur blacks and fluorescent effects. He has developed methods for eliminating 99% of the effluent pollution from Indigo ranges as well as the causes of health issues like contact dermatitis.

Litton Mills, the Philippines. In denim reduced off-quality from 35% to 15%, including elimination of 100% of start marks and finishing defects. Reduced Indigo shades from average of 11 to 1 and reduced dyeing costs by 40%.Grandtex, Indonesia. Made possible for company to satisfy leading apparel companies in Asia for higher profit margins. Increased yarn manufacturing efficiency by 20%, reduced yarn breaks in weaving by more than 50%.
Developed line of original stretch fabrics that made company leader in Asia. Created new denim colors that could not be duplicated. Reduced COD levels in water treatment by about 90%. Textiles Denim, Mexico. Company tried for 3 years to satisfy requirements of denim for Wrangler. Expert was able to correct deficiencies in dyeing, weaving and finishing that allowed them to secure the most profitable business in their history. Audited chemical suppliers in China and arranged sourcing from China that allowed more than 50% reduction in direct costs. Increased yarn manufacturing efficiency by about 20%.Crescent Denim, Pakistan. Managed to create the best line of stretch denim fabrics in Asia. Duplicated the most popular colors in the European fashion market- Cedro, Brazil. Developed radical new dyeing procedure that allowed cold dyeing of sulfur blacks with highest colorfastness, no polluting wash-off and no crocking, solving the 3 biggest persistent problems with black denim. Reduced dyeing costs by about 50% for annual savings of $5 million.