4th Quarter, January 2015 

In This Issue… 2 - Chief Comments 3 - New Employee Spotlight Employee of the Quarter 4 - Harrison Happenings 5 - New Security Threat - Cryptowall 6 - 2014—A Year in Review 8 - The History of Soap 9 - Your Health & Wellness 10– Nease Cares 11 - Nease Notables 12 - Halloween Fun 13 - Holiday Party 14 - Birthdays / Service Anniversaries

Nease News

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CHIEF COMMENTS... ~ Frank   

Happy New Year. So we have completed another year and we 

are beginning a new one. Time does fly by. I hope you all had 

joyous and safe holidays with family and friends. Ge ng into a 

new year is always a good  me for reflec on of accomplish-

ments and thinking about what will be done in the new year. It 

is  me to make personal resolu ons as it signals a new begin-

ning, whether it is about health and losing weight and exercis-

ing more, a favorite one for most people, resolving to save 

more or pay off debt, reconnec ng with family and friends, or 

something else.  

Reflec ng back on 2014, it was a good year for Nease and I 

want to thank one and all for making this a smooth year. So 

what did we accomplish? 

The detergent business integra on went well. Learning custom-

er ordering pa erns, how to maintain inventory levels, dilu ng 

and packaging new products presented challenges that through 

a en on to detail were efficiently overcome; that was definite-

ly a team effort, and the results showed it.  

Nease started to manufacture a few new products. A er an 

ini al setback on 965A, produc on issues were resolved, and 

we were successful in ge ng product manufactured. This will 

turn into good business for us.  Efficiency improvements in the 

ANS system as applied to manufacturing octane sulfonates re-

sulted in mee ng orders for the product well above plan. Addi-

onally new phosphate esters like, the 184 were successfully 

manufactured using the P2O5 feeder.  

Also completed was the new process building, that will allow us 

to expand produc on capacity for new and exis ng products. 

All this took the effort and  me of all; not bad for one year. 

Of course 2015 is going to bring new challenges and I am confi-

dent that we will again perform up to the usual Nease standard. 

For 2015, safety will con nue to be a focus and considered to 

be a key success factor for Nease. If there was a lowlight for 

2014 it was the number of recordable accidents. Con nuing 

work we started last year, a review of the company safety cul-

ture will be conducted through a “Safety Culture” team that will 

examine current prac ces and a tude and make recommenda-

ons on how to improve in this area. If you are asked to par ci-

pate, please do so. This is important! Reviewing how to be er 

perform jobs through job safety analysis and job observa ons 

will con nue to focus on behavior based safety. 

The effort to manufacture new products and to build on our 

current product list offering will also con nue in 2015. The new 

process building will be filled with manufacturing equipment 

during the year so that produc on can be added. Whether this 

is to expand the capacity for NA-/NA-8D, manufacturing prod-

ucts that we are currently purchasing and reselling like the Nax-

ate 260L, or adding new products, as a company it is necessary 

to grow in order to remain viable.  

Also effort to improve efficiency, reducing cycle  me in exis ng 

equipment, tackling energy saving projects, reducing waste 

from the manufacturing process, as well as efforts to streamline 

the opera on will con nue.  

Overall I believe that 2015 will be just as an exci ng year as 

2014 and I am looking forward to building on the successes of 

last year. 

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”                                                                                                                                                                                                 ― Edith Lovejoy Pierce  

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What’s Happening in Harrison? ‐By Steve  

Acid Expansion 

Construc on of the new building is essen ally complete, and it will be ready for pilot plant and process equipment as soon as all 

building permits have been finalized. Ini al equipment design and layout are currently being reviewed and equipment will most 

likely be installed in early to mid-2015. Equipment installed in the new building will be first used to manufacture phosphate esters, 

and perhaps NA-8/NA-8D. These reactors systems will ul mately be modified to manufacture sulfonic acids, as demand is expected 

to outstrip capacity in the next several years. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Product Manufacturing 

Another new phosphate ester, Naxonac 184, has been manufactured using the 

P2O5 feed system. Another version, Naxonac PB 184 is scheduled for produc on 

in January. Thanks to all involved for their efforts in the success of this project. 

Poten al New Products: 260L—Several a empts have been made over the last 

couple of years to manufacture 260L. Advances have 

been made with raw materials from new vendors 

that has allowed T&PD to create material that is ac-

ceptable to our customers. Look for pilot scale pro-

duc on to begin in early 2015. 

  

Naxonac PB 184—As men oned above, this is a modified 

version of Naxonac 184. The main process is the 

same, with minor adjustment to raw material charge 

amounts and charge sequence 

 

EB123X—Several batches of this product were manufac-

tured in 2014. Steve Hamilton is currently working on 

equipment improvements to make the process more 

efficient and more operator friendly. Demand in 2015 

is expected to be approximately 150,000 lbs. 

Amine Neutralized EB123X—As the name suggests, this is 

a neutralized version of EB123X that is currently be-

ing inves gated for an oilfield applica on. If the pro-

ject is successful, demand could be as much as 1.0 

MM lbs./year. 

 

HEMA Phosphate—This is another phosphate ester which 

requires the use of P2O5. The produc on process is 

very similar to the various other phosphate esters. 

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In October of last year, news broke about a new form of malware called Cryptolocker. This malware posed a partic-ularly large threat to many business users and led to many quick and important security updates. Now, almost a year later, it appears that the second version of this – Cryp-toWall – has been released and is beginning to infect us-ers.

What is Crypto malware?

Crypto malware is a type of Trojan horse that when in-stalled onto computers or devices, holds the data and sys-tem hostage. This is done by locking valuable or important files with a strong encryption. You then see a pop-up open informing you that you have a set amount of time to pay for a key which will unlock the encryption. If you don’t pay be-fore the deadline, your files are deleted.

When this malware surfaced last year, many users were understandably more than a little worried and took strong precautions to ensure they did not get infected. Despite these efforts, it really didn’t go away until earlier this year, when security experts introduced a number of online por-tals that can un-encrypt files affected by Cryptolocker, es-sentially neutralizing the threat, until now, that is. A recently updated version is threatening users once again.

Cryptolocker 2.0, aka. CryptoWall

Possibly because of efforts by security firms to neutralize the Cryptolocker threat, the various developers of the mal-ware have come back with an improved version, Cryp-toWall and it is a threat that all businesses should be aware of.

With CryptoWall, the transmission and infection methods remain the same as they did with the first version: It is most commonly found in zipped folders and PDF files sent over email. Most emails with the malware are disguised as in-voices, bills, complaints, and other business messages that we are likely to open.

The developers did however make some “improvements” to the malware that make it more difficult to deal with for most users. These changes include:

Unique IDs are used for payment: These are ad-dresses used to verify that the payment is unique and from

one person only. If the address is used by another user, payment will now be rejected. This is different from the first version where one person who paid could share the unlock code with other infected users.

CryptoWall can securely delete files: In the older version of this threat, files were deleted if the ransom was-n’t paid, but they could be recovered easily. In the new ver-sion the encryption has increased security which ensures the file is deleted. This leaves you with either the option of paying the ransom or retrieving the file from a backup.

Payment servers can’t be blocked: With CryptoLocker, when authorities and security experts found the addresses of the servers that accepted payments, they were able to add these to blacklists, thus ensuring no traffic would come from, or go to, these servers again. Essentially, this made it impossible for the malware to actually work. Now, it has been found that the developers are using their own servers and gateways which essentially makes them much, much more difficult to find and ban. How do I prevent my systems and devices from being in-fected?

Unlike other viruses and malware, CryptoWall doesn’t go after passwords or account names, so the usual changing of your passwords won’t really help. The best ways to pre-vent this from getting onto your systems is:

Don’t open any suspicious attachments - Look at each and every email attachment that comes into your in-box. If you spot anything that looks odd, such as say a spelling mistake in the name, or a long string of characters together, notice that you won a lottery or someone wants to send you money, then it is best to avoid opening it.

Don’t open emails from unknown sources - Be extra careful about emails from unknown sources, especially ones that say they provide business oriented information e.g., bank statements from banks you don’t have an ac-count with or bills from a utilities company you don’t use. Chances are high that they contain some form of malware. Should your files be attacked and encrypted by this mal-ware, then the first thing you should do is contact me or FSN immediately. And again, your best line of defense is not to open any files with a PDF that you are not expecting. If your machine does become infected the only solution is to wipe the computer and start again. We are not paying the ransom. Since all of you are saving your work related files to your “m” drive, all of that data can be recovered, but not without significant time and effort, so please be careful opening PDF files.

New Security Threat: CryptoWall - by Phil

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2014—A Year in Review  By Gordon   

There are many great truisms in life - For example:

Time is Money

A Penny saved is a Penny Earned

There is nothing certain in this world except Death and Taxes

But one of my favorite sayings is - “The only thing constant is change.”

That was certainly never more true than in the past year of 2014. Let’s take a look back….. 

Nease began handling sales and distribu on of the detergent product line of Weylchem (previously Clariant) in Janu‐ary. There was a lot of work to do to get ready to do this given that we just heard of the sale in the 4Q of 2013 – things like establishing product codes, sourcing product from Europe, assigning sales reps, contac ng customers, ge ng trained on the new products, transferring inventory, changing the Nease web site, se ng up new customers in Chem‐pax, etc.   All in all the transi on was considered successful, seamless, transparent, and brought in addi onal sales revenue and profits to Nease. 

Obtained new business with our Naxan EB123 and EB123X (a new product). 

Saw a drop in outsourced product sales as the compe ve landscape for DDBSA changed making it difficult for Nease to profitably compete. 

DeLaval started ordering NA8D from us on a regular basis which con nued through the year – turned out to be a sig‐nificant volume in 2014 (again this is a new product coming out of the T&PD group). 

Sold more SXS to our compe tors on a co‐producer basis. 

There was a major shi  in our distribu on partners.  A er years of significant sales thru Univar and Ashland (Nexeo) we shi ed away from these distributors and are now working more closely with various Brenntag companies, PVS, and other regional distributors. 

We set monthly record in sales during the month of April – the new detergents business certainly played a factor here. We then topped this record again in the month of July. 

Our hydrotrope business saw a huge increase in the April/May  me frame when there was a supply interrup on in Xylene.  Nease was posi oned be er than our compe tors and was able to capitalize on this situa on. 

We recaptured a major posi on with North America’s largest SXS user (Ecolab).  This a er a 2 year hiatus when they had decided to sole source their SXS requirements. We are now back supplying product to Mar nsburg, WV; McDounough, GA; Camco; Missasauga, ON; and Greensboro, NC. 

Successfully raised prices at some select accounts to improve profitability that had declined in a few situa ons. 

Began inventorying, dilu ng, and packaging Hostapur SAS 60 and SAS 30 at Harrison elimina ng any  es to Clariant’s Mt Holly, NC plant. This improved service levels as well as profitability for Nease. 

Dupont sold their Glass/Lamina ng Solu ons/Vinyls business to Japan‐based Kurrary Co. (We supply Naxcat to 2 of their produc on facili es). 

Kimberly Clark shi ed their 40SC requirements from their plant in San Antonio TX to a contract packager (Marie a Corp) in NY 

Nease brought on a new Account Manager – Danielle Keatley, an experienced sales person to help handle our growing sales as well as explore new opportuni es. 

Addi onally Mike Biehle was hired to bolster our business development efforts as we explore what new product areas we should pursue – this is already paying dividends. 

Con nued next page 

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The History of Soap and Surfactants ~By Mike

Soap got its name, according to an ancient Roman legend, from Mount Sapo, where animals 

were sacrificed.  Rain washed a mixture of melted animal fat, or tallow, and wood ashes 

down into the clay soil along the Tiber River.  Women thought that this clay mixture was a 

gi  from the gods and made their wash cleaner with much less effort. 

The ancient Germans and Gauls are also credited with discovering a substance called soap, 

made of tallow and ashes that they used to  nt their hair red. 

 

 

 

 

The popularity of bathing declined with the fall of the Roman Empire and bathing through-

out Europe became a extravagance only for the wealthy.  This lack of cleanliness certainly 

added to the cause of the plague that occurred during the 14th century in Europe. 

 

The technology of soap making in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries grew as 

cra smen would set up shop near animal slaughter houses where animal fats 

were readily available.  The soap making art came to America with the early 

se lers where it became a household chore to make soap out of saved animal 

fats and lye.  Most of us remember the old “Beverly Hillbillies” television program 

where Granny would occasionally make a batch of lye soap out by the “cement 

pond”.  She would melt animal fats or lard over an open fire and mix in store 

bought lye.  The hot mixture was poured into wooden molds and allowed to cool 

to make the bars of soap used for all cleaning chores. 

Eventually soap making became an industry and factories were built near animal slaughter houses such as those established in Cin-

cinna  in the mid 1800’s.  The much improved availability of soap caused it to change from a luxury item to an everyday necessity. 

The chemistry of soap making remained essen ally the same un l 1916 when the first synthe c detergents were developed in Ger-

many during WWII when animal fats and oils for making soap were scarce.  German scien sts found that synthe c “soap” could be 

made by reac ng certain frac ons of petroleum or coal oil with sulfuric or phosphoric acids.  These early synthe c detergents were 

studied and found to have pronounced surface ac vity lowering the surface tension of water allowing faster we ng of all surfaces.  

They were called surface ac ve agents which eventually morphed into the term surfactant. 

The first synthe c detergents were produced in the United States in the 1930’s but never 

caught on un l a er WWII.  With the development of electric appliances such as washing ma-

chines the need for specialty surfactants developed.  Specialty surfactants were developed for 

laundry applica ons, hand dish washing, automa c dish washing, shampoo, bubble bath, cos-

me cs and eventually ins tu onal and industrial applica ons.  Today there are over 2,000 

name brand surfactants manufactured around the world. 

Here at Nease we make some of these specialty surfactants and are ac vely looking to expand 

our product line into more highly specialized areas. 

¹The Soap and Detergent Associa on History of Soap 

As Roman civiliza on advanced, so did bathing.  The first of the famous Roman baths, 

supplied with water from their aqueducts, was built about 312 B.C.  The baths were 

luxurious, and bathing became very popular.  By the second century A.D., the Greek 

physician, Galen, recommended soap for both medicinal and cleansing purposes.¹ 

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Very Scary...

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Nease Holiday Party

December 13, 2014