WINONA, Minn. – The Solvay logo around town is disappearing, just as did the logo of the predecessor Winona-born company Fiberite in 1997. The manufacturer of adhesives and lightweight carbon fiber has been spun off by its Belgian owners and rechristened. The new name: Syensqo, which may seem a little too clever for “science-koh” but that’s how the new company wants you to say it. In announcing the spin-off, Syensqo’s U.S. headquarters in Texas made no comment about any changes in the Winona operation. The Winona plant employs 200 people. The split from Solvay, accordig to new company, marks a significant strategic shift” in the competitive marketplace for specialty polymers and composite processing technologies. The Syensqo portfolio is especially diversified, the company said. The Syensqo spin-off has $8.5 billion in annual sales. Its products include not only adhesives but also specialty polymers nd fragrances. The Winona plant produces mostly aerospace composite materials. The olant occupies most of two city blocks between Olmstead and McBride streets between Third and Fourth streets.
New name, new logo. Some locals still call it Fiberite.
Time to call the painters. Again. At 501 West Third Street. Image: Steve Lunde
Syensqo profile
The Syensqo facility in Winona was founded in 1948 as Fiberite by local entrepreneurs Ben and Rudy Miller. The Millers built Fiberite into a major role in the emergency composites industry by engineering resins that were far lighter than aluminum and incredibly stronger — and also far less expensive than titanium. The Millers cashed in on their innovations in 1985 and sold the company to the British conglomerate Imperial Chemical Industries, which adjusted the local name “ICI Fiberite.” ICI sold the company to Cytec Engineered Materials of New Jersey in 1997. In 2015 Cytec was purchased by Solvay of Belgium. These all were multi-billion dollar deals. Solvay will continue to exist but corporately separate from the Syensqo spin-off.
Why “Syensqo”?
It takes some explaining. So hang on:
>“Sy.” Links back to the first and last letters in Solvay.
> “En.” A nod to Ernest Solvay’s name.
> “Syens.” For “science” get it? Refers to Solvay’s scientific heritage, which goes back to 1911, when its founder. Ernest Solvay. brought 24 of the world’s most brilliant scientific minds together – including Albert Einstein and Marie Curie – for the first Solvay Conference. In fact, the impact was so profound that the Unesco World Heritage Committee decided to inscribe the archives of the Solvay Conferences for Physics and Chemistry in its Memory of the World Register.
> “Q.” Points to this same 1911 conference, which laid the foundations for quantum physics, whhc ed to cutting-edge innovations.
> “Qo.” For company.