As Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing turns 10, we're looking back at 10 people who made significant contributions to the industry during the past decade. Read more of our 10 People for 10 Years here.
By Ron Shinn
Steve Maguire was already a legend in the plastics industry when PMM launched in 2014. He built a liquid color pump in 1976 that worked well, and six months later was building and selling the technology out of his apartment in Willow Grove, Pa. Maguire Products was launched.
The company grew as he continued to develop new products and reinvented old ones to make them better or more affordable. Not bad for someone who never finished his first year of college.
Maguire was inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame in 2018. His induction certificate reads, “Steve has transformed and advanced the state of the art in plastic material handling technologies and systems.”
Now in his 80s, Maguire is still president and involved in day-to-day operations of the company he founded. He once told PMM that he frequently solves engineering problems while in bed. “Every night when I go to bed, I think of a product, either one I am working on or one I am going to work on. I don’t want to know how other people solved the problem. I just start with the problem, think about it, then think about ways to solve it.”
Digital controls, machine learning and artificial intelligence — all very much part of modern auxiliary machinery controls — did not exist when Maguire started building equipment. But today they are part of his master engineer’s toolbox.
Ron Shinn | Editor
Editor Ron Shinn is a co-founder of Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing and has been covering the plastics industry for more than 35 years. He leads the editorial team, directs coverage and sets the editorial calendar. He also writes features, including the Talking Points column and On the Factory Floor, and covers recycling and sustainability for PMM and Plastics Recycling.
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