About PTAI

Our History

Phillip Townsend Associates is the leader in global benchmarking solutions, headquartered in Houston, Texas. Established in 1972 as a plastics industry information source, we expanded our business focus to encompass a full spectrum of benchmarking services. We have worked in over 35 countries in over 50 industries.

All of our benchmarking programs are custom designed for specific clients with the constant objective of delivering validated, comparative information that can be easily used to make decisions and take actions to improve performance across the enterprise.

Over the years, we have earned a reputation for trusted advice and counsel from our clients - through our uncompromised commitment to value and performance.

 

The Executive Team

Phillip Townsend, Founder and Chairman

Phillip Townsend is a visionary and an energy expert with over 40 years of experience in plastics and the energy industry. He has extensive experience in bringing together different technologies, finding the right people, and successfully launching products. With his Harvard and MIT background, Phil brings a wealth of knowledge and wisdom in bringing the disciplines of business and engineering together towards solving some of the world with many companies, some of which are household names: Shell, Sasol, DuPont, Monsanto, Dow, just to name a few.

Townsend earned a Chemical Engineering degree from MIT and a BS in Economics from Purdue University, with MBA and Doctoral level study, teaching and research at Harvard Business School. He lives with his wife in Spring Texas, north of Houston.

 

Barjor M. Dastur, President & CEO

Barjor started working in the automotive group at PTAI in 1993 and later joined the benchmarking group in 1994. He is responsible for driving the strategic direction of Phillip Townsend Associates, Inc., articulating the organization's mission and executing strategies to achieve it. Barjor led PTAI’s acquisition of the LNG value chain and the SPI manpower efficiency benchmarking programs from Shell. Under Barjor, PTAI also acquired PSI (Plant Surveys International) – the leading company for benchmarking the fertilizer chain.

Currently Barjor spends his time as an adviser to senior executives, translating benchmarking results into actionable insights. He spends a significant amount of his time at customer facilities to facilitate deep on-site interactions in order to better understand strategic and operational needs.

Barjor has a Bachelors Degree in Production Engineering from V.J.T.I. in Bombay and a MBA from Rice University. Prior to joining Phillip Townsend Associates, Inc., he worked for an industrial equipment company.

 

Dave Bohmbach, Vice Chairman
Dave Bohmbach brings over 25 years of experience in the chemicals and plastics industry to Phillip Townsend Associates. His benchmarking activities have led him to visit over 120 chemical and polymer manufacturing sites in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East. He has presented recommendations for improvement in business processes and practices to over 70 different producers of polymers and chemicals. He has contributed to numerous management and strategy consulting projects for clients around the world. He also has worked extensively to apply advanced quantitative methods to the analysis of plastic and chemical industry business issues.

Bohmbach received his MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago and his BA in Economics and Mathematics from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.


Kathleen Blumenthal, Chief Administrative Officer

Kathleen Blumenthal joined Phillip Townsend Associates in 1989 and brings to Townsend over 15 years of experience with a major resin company and an international consulting organization in business research. Previously, she was Business Director of the Performance & Cost Metrics (PCMP) Benchmarking Department. Her responsibilities included project management of the PCMP competitive benchmarking programs for both plastics and chemicals. This program provides individual producers with a detailed assessment of their competitive performance position relative to their prospective peer groups. She received a BA degree from SUNY Stony Brook and has completed graduate work at Long Island University.

 

Jennifer Welch, Chief Information Officer

As Chief Information Officer for Phillip Townsend Associates, Jennifer Welch manages all aspects of Information Technology used by PTAI to deliver exceptional service, including database and software development, hardware and software acquisitions and support, outsourcer and client relationships and budgeting and planning, as well as managing PTAI's IT staff. Previously Ms. Welch has held Developer, Lead Developer, Systems Analyst, and IT Management positions within PTAI and has participated in IT related work on all major benchmarking projects. Ms. Welch joined Phillip Townsend Associates in 1993. She received a BA degree in Management Information Systems from Texas A&M University, College Station.

 

Mark Eggleston, Director - Europe & Middle East

Mark Eggleston is Director for Phillip Townsend Associates' Europe and Middle East business, based in Brussels. He has over 30 years of plastics and chemical industry experience, with positions in business management, production, maintenance, engineering and construction.

Mr. Eggleston has business start-up, expansion and restructuring experience with Amoco and BP in polypropylene, styrenics and engineering plastics, in Europe and the US. This included business strategy development and execution; new market entry; management of product, catalyst and process technology programs; international sales/distribution, procurement, logistics and plant operations, construction and start-up. Recent positions were as Business Manager, Polymers Europe in Geneva and Business Manager EPS in London. He led the polypropylene 4th generation catalyst conversion project for Amoco during the early 1990's, which included process modifications, extensive plant scale testing, market entry for their entire product range, catalyst sourcing negotiations and start up of the new technology catalyst production plant. He supported gas phase process license sales and direct investment projects. He has maintenance and operations plant experience including planning and executing turnarounds with plant maintenance, operations and contract staff, reconstructing major process and rotating equipment, furnaces and boilers; cleaning and reconditioning process equipment; installation and start-up of major capital projects and instituting improved maintenance and operations procedures and on-line support systems

Mr. Eggleston has been active in various industry committees including the Association of Plastic Manufacturers in Europe (APME) and the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI). He is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas. He holds degrees in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas, Business Administration and Computer Hardware Design from the University of Houston, and has conducted post-graduate study at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.

 

Daniel Compte, Division Manager - Europe

Daniel Compte is a Senior Manager with Phillip Townsend Associates and he is based in Barcelona, Spain. Having worked in both North America and Europe, Mr. Compte has over 20 years of senior management experience with multinational oil & chemical corporations, most predominantly in segments of the polyethylene and polymers industries. His management experience includes strategic planning, product management and sales/marketing on the commercial side of the business. His last position was as CEO of a major specialty polymers producer. Mr. Compte holds a Bachelor's Degree in chemical Engineering from the Institut Quimic de Sarria.

 

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Testimonials

pictureWe were making the wrong decisions based on assumptions that we had held to be true. The PTAI analysis revealed that we were not as competitive as we had believed. Our performance paradigms clearly had to be changed at the top and throughout the organization.”

CEO

“We did not fully understand how the margins on various product lines could be optimized. When we were able to see our costs in a true competitive context for the first time, we made some dramatic changes in our sales strategies that almost immediately improved our gross margins.” 
SVP, Sales and Marketing

“We realized that our sales incentives did not fit our competitive strategy.”
Director of Sales


“Our competitive position had changed, but we were able to learn why and how to change course with reliable information. The type of benchmarking cleared our vision and gave us the facts to act.”
COO

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