00:00:01 The film you're about to see was created in order to show the accomplishments of a number of dedicated people, the people of Hercules.

00:00:13 The dramatic growth of our sales and investment and income over the years is important to all of our people,

00:00:22 not just because it represents growth of the company, but because it represents opportunities for our people,

00:00:29 most of whom spend a large portion of their lives with that company.

00:00:35 The most important single asset we have is our people and their commitment to carrying out the responsibilities of their jobs.

00:00:46 We're very proud of our accomplishments, our diversification, some of which you'll be seeing.

00:00:54 It represents 60 years of corporate existence.

00:00:59 Three generations of our people have built this company, and in a very real sense,

00:01:07 it's the employees who've had a vital hand in making everything you're going to be seeing.

00:01:14 I hope you enjoy this film.

00:01:37 Fire, earth, air and water.

00:01:46 In the world of the ancients, these elements and their relationship became the science of chemistry.

00:01:54 In responsible hands, chemistry and chemical technology have become a creative force for the lasting benefit of man.

00:02:05 Chemical fertilizers enrich the soil and work to increase man's food supply, relieving hunger and famine in a world that faces a burgeoning population.

00:02:19 Man fabricates metals.

00:02:23 Natural forces conspire to destroy them.

00:02:28 Through chemical research, protective coatings add corrosion resistance that provides new horizons of life for metals.

00:02:38 Around the clock, millions of gallons of sewage and other fluid wastes are generated that can pollute the waterways of the world and our vital water supply.

00:02:52 Chemical water treatment has made possible the restoration of the balance of nature in waters once considered hopelessly contaminated and is providing new answers to the problems of pollution.

00:03:04 Chemistry can go and is going far beyond this.

00:03:09 In foods, textiles, communications, synthetics, transportation, in every field of human endeavor, there has been important progress through Hercules technology.

00:03:24 Where there's a need, there's Hercules.

00:03:28 This is a gallery of imagination, a collection of the unusual, a window into the past and the future.

00:03:47 It's a panorama of the unique accomplishments of Hercules in meeting the needs of the peoples of the world.

00:03:54 January 1913 marked the birth of Hercules as a manufacturer of explosives for the construction, mining, and quarrying industries.

00:04:04 And from this beginning, Hercules scientists and engineers sought out new opportunities for chemical manufacture.

00:04:13 Here in Brunswick, Georgia, they learned to harvest the unwanted stumps from cutover pinelands, to remove valuable resins from them and produce turpentine, rosin, pine oil, and a growing family of new and useful terpene chemicals.

00:04:30 They salvaged the tiny fuzz from the discarded cotton seed, purified it, processed it, and gave it utility in coatings and garments and photographic films.

00:04:42 Other Hercules teams transformed pure cellulose into products for use in foods, paper, pharmaceuticals, petroleum, and dozens of other developing industries.

00:04:58 By the mid-1940s, Hercules emerged as the world's largest producer of wood rosins and was a leader in the fields of pine chemicals, cellulose products, and explosives.

00:05:13 The end of World War II marked a turning point in the industrial affairs of the world and of the company.

00:05:22 Hercules chemicals had become the common denominator of manufactured goods.

00:05:27 As industry geared up to civilian production, the company took steps to meet this need.

00:05:33 And even as post-war expansion of Hercules plants and facilities was underway to meet the requirements of the market, Hercules planners took bold steps toward the future, searching out critical needs of a world eager to rebuild.

00:05:51 In rural America, millions of dollars were being lost each year to insect damage.

00:06:00 Left unchecked, they could destroy well over half the farm crops grown.

00:06:05 New and improved plant foods were needed as transfusions for starving soils to make possible the bountiful harvests necessary to a growing economy.

00:06:17 At the research center near Wilmington, Delaware, teams of scientists worked to cultivate and nourish the seeds of challenge into a harvest of new products.

00:06:30 From hundreds of thousands of hours of developmental study of liquid terpenes, Hercules chemists developed chlorinated camphene, an entirely new toxicant.

00:06:42 Introduced to the market as toxaphene, this insecticide brought unprecedented degrees of control to the cotton farmer.

00:06:54 Toxaphene proved equally effective in the control of the grasshopper, the army worm, and a host of agricultural pests.

00:07:04 Patient study of other needs in entomological and agronomical fields gave rise to other important new products to place Hercules firmly in the agricultural market.

00:07:22 A storehouse of accumulated knowledge in cellulose chemistry was a natural entry into polymers research.

00:07:30 Hercules chemists arranged molecules into long, complex chains that produced new and exciting compounds with chemical properties different from any of the original components.

00:07:44 This led to the development of processes for manufacturing dimethyl terephthalate, or DMT.

00:07:52 Today, this basic material is used in virtually every manufacturing plant where polyester fiber is produced and has become one of Hercules' most important products.

00:08:04 Research on the polymerization of propylene led to the development of polypropylene films, to Hercules' Profax for injection molding applications, and Herculon olefin fiber for use in carpets and furniture upholstery.

00:08:22 Many of the natural substances in demand for industrial use are variable in strength, quality, and availability.

00:08:32 Hercules chemists sought to develop synthetic substitutes that could be controlled during manufacture for quality and could be developed to possess specific desired properties.

00:08:45 Synthetic rubber possesses some properties which make it more desirable for commercial use than natural rubber.

00:08:53 And Hercules' synthetic rubbers, vulcanizing agents, polymerization resins, and solvents soon took their place on the market.

00:09:03 Synthetic resins for the manufacture of paint, varnish, lacquer, adhesives, paper, printing inks, floor coverings, and other products followed suit.

00:09:15 As the company has grown, so has the demand for all its products.

00:09:20 As early as the 1920s, foreign brokers were selling Hercules chemicals in France, Russia, and in Britain.

00:09:29 As the Hercules reputation for quality spread, foreign trade grew to such a volume that the company established affiliates in Holland, England, Canada, Germany, and Mexico.

00:09:42 Distributors were appointed as far away as India and Australia.

00:09:47 And by the 1950s, Hercules was trading with the world.

00:09:52 Almost any place you touched on a map, you would find Hercules customers.

00:10:02 This flow of goods has been of significant importance to the growth of the company.

00:10:08 As large as the U.S. market is, it still represents less than 7% of the world market.

00:10:23 International trade permits Hercules and its employees and investors to participate in the manufacture of goods and services to the 93% of the market that makes up the rest of the world.

00:10:39 With increased export sales, Hercules acquired new marketing skills, developed important customer relations, and exchanged vital technical knowledge with customers around the world.

00:10:54 To open up more new markets that could not be served sufficiently by direct export from the United States, Hercules set up new plants overseas.

00:11:07 In the Netherlands, facilities were built to manufacture paper chemicals, synthetic rubber chemicals, and protective and decorative coating materials.

00:11:22 To serve a rapidly expanding market in Australia, facilities were created to produce rubber chemicals, paper sizes, and polyester resins.

00:11:33 Other new plants were built or acquired, extending from Europe to the Orient, in 18 countries around the world, to serve a growing list of Hercules customers.

00:11:50 The manufacture of Hercules products overseas stimulates the sales of all the company's products and services.

00:11:59 Local technical sales and service personnel in each country uncover markets for U.S. produced products, creating new levels of business for United States plants.

00:12:11 As a result, production capacity of many plants has been doubled, even tripled.

00:12:18 And new additions and plant expansions have created hundreds of jobs for men and women in the United States, for the manufacture and distribution of synthetics, pine chemicals, plastics, and other Hercules products.

00:12:31 Today, the company has widened its perspectives beyond any national borders, to view the world as a total marketplace.

00:12:51 Global operations enhance the company's ability to meet the needs of marketing in an ever-changing pattern of international trade.

00:13:03 So the doing business in Hercules' Far East offices in Tokyo is as much a part of the everyday routine as processing and shipping an order to a customer from the Mississippi Delta.

00:13:16 The answer to a technical problem for a paper manufacturer in Australia may come from Hercules technology developed in Sweden.

00:13:27 If there is a secret ingredient that has helped Hercules in its consistent growth, it's the company's total commitment to technology and its market response.

00:13:41 A vast gulf exists between a reaction that can proceed in a test tube and an operational manufacturing plant that can produce the same material of sufficiently high quality at a low enough cost to be sold in the markets of the world.

00:13:56 Hercules DMT is a good example.

00:13:59 This product, dimethyl terephthalate, had been produced experimentally.

00:14:04 Hercules took a critical look at the need.

00:14:08 And then accepted the challenge to make it at a profit.

00:14:14 Of course, to transform such a project from a chemist's experiment into the reality of steel and concrete requires a highly skilled team of specialists.

00:14:24 Here is where the accumulation of practical know-how by Hercules project engineers, research chemists, construction experts, and marketing specialists pays off.

00:14:37 These plants are designed to turn out DMT of the highest commercial purity.

00:14:44 Because of expansions, like this one at Wilmington, North Carolina, Hercules today is the world's largest producer of DMT.

00:15:00 Where there's a need, there's Hercules.

00:15:04 The experience gained in solving problems in wastewater engineering for customers in cities like Atlanta, Georgia becomes stock in trade to help customers as far away as Denmark or Germany or the French Riviera.

00:15:19 On this rocky coastline, it would be difficult as well as unsightly to install large outdoor settling tanks in the sewage treatment system.

00:15:29 And the cost of putting them indoors would be prohibitive.

00:15:33 Using Hercafloc, a polymer which rapidly settles out solid particles from treated sewage, solved a difficult problem for the citizens of Saint-Tropez.

00:15:47 And that's just one example of Hercules water-soluble polymers at work.

00:15:53 These important chemicals are essential to the production of a wide variety of everyday products.

00:16:01 They find use in textiles, in detergents, in paints, adhesives and cements, in packaging products, in pharmaceuticals, and even in oil well drilling.

00:16:13 They make ice cream smoother and creamier. They make gelatin set better.

00:16:18 Hercules' knowledge and solid background in cellulose chemistry has made us the largest producer of water-soluble polymers in the world.

00:16:28 The search for better ways to serve our customers never ends.

00:16:34 Experiments with food thickening agents led us to this acquisition in Copenhagen, Denmark.

00:16:40 Here, in a one-of-a-kind operation, dried citrus peel, once considered waste, and several varieties of seaweed are processed and transformed into two valuable food products, pectin and carrageenan.

00:16:55 Pectin finds use the world over as a gelling agent in fruit puddings, candies and jellies.

00:17:10 Carrageenan has unique gelling characteristics not found in any other material and works exceptionally well in milk-based systems, such as cream pie fillings, ice cream, and as a thickener in flavored milk drinks.

00:17:25 Where there's a need, there's Hercules.

00:17:32 Hercules' response to modern agricultural demands has helped to feed and clothe the world population.

00:17:40 Toxophene is a frontline weapon against more than 200 species of insects, which attack a wide variety of crops.

00:17:49 The introduction of toxophene to combat the boll weevil restored profitability to the cotton farmer.

00:18:01 Toxophene's success in the control of insect infestations has led to its widespread demand around the world.

00:18:09 However, increased crop productivity also depends on effective plant foods.

00:18:19 The need for soil nutrients is especially critical in many of the newly developing nations.

00:18:27 To fill this need, manufacturing facilities such as Dawood Hercules near Lahore, Pakistan, have been created to serve local markets.

00:18:38 In one of the most modern plants of its kind, technicians convert natural gas into prilled urea, which has the highest nitrogen content of any commercially available solid fertilizer product.

00:18:51 In its prilled form, urea can be used easily with conventional application equipment or can be broadcast by hand, important in areas where mechanization has not made great strides.

00:19:08 This urea is manufactured to the highest standards of quality. However, to obtain the maximum benefit from its use, it must be applied properly.

00:19:24 In Pakistan, as everywhere in the world, company technical representatives go out into the marketplace offering customers advice on how to better utilize the products that fit his needs.

00:19:41 Millions of printed pages of technical literature in several languages support the field representatives with information about the characteristics and uses of our products and suggest applications, focus attention on research, and communicate the latest technical developments.

00:20:00 We feel this is important because Hercules has a vital stake in many industries throughout the world.

00:20:09 Corflo, a unique underground residential utility wire sleeve, is made of Hercules polyethylene. Strong, yet light in weight, it has anti-abrasion and corrosion properties which resist water penetration.

00:20:26 HiFax high-density polyethylene is the basic ingredient in the manufacture of containers for milk, household chemicals, beverages, and other liquids.

00:20:37 Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene is used in the manufacture of many specialized products, like this replacement hip socket for the human body.

00:20:49 Each day, a million pounds of Profax polypropylene goes into the manufacture of appliances, housewares, industrial, and automotive products.

00:21:03 The most dramatic use of Hercules polypropylene in the auto industry is in front of the firewall.

00:21:10 Front suspensions are being loaded to the point where manufacturers are looking to save weight without loss of strength or wear life.

00:21:18 So we have a polypropylene air filter housing. And in many cars, a plastic fan shroud, and the fender liners, splash boards, and cowlings.

00:21:28 Even battery housings are being made of Hercules polypropylene.

00:21:33 And in the passenger compartment, we are in side panels, door panels, and quarter panels, in addition to the decorative trim.

00:21:45 In our Terre Haute and Covington plants, Hercules polypropylene is extruded into a clear film for use in packaging, and fills a need for a variety of markets in this form.

00:21:58 As a shrink film, it finds its way to the marketplace as protection for such items as phonograph records and children's toys.

00:22:13 As an overwrap, Hercules films are used on tobacco products, candies, foods, and other applications where clear view and protection is important.

00:22:23 As a laminate between other materials, it covers the constantly growing field of snack food packaging and novelty wrappings.

00:22:36 Lake Charles, Louisiana, is the largest of Hercules polypropylene facilities.

00:22:43 We've been in the plastics business for more than 50 years, since our early research into cellulose nitrate, and have become the world's biggest manufacturer of polypropylene resins, a position we plan to maintain.

00:22:57 Turning in another direction, Hercules supplies the textile industry with polypropylene fiber made here in Oxford, Georgia.

00:23:05 Plants like this one operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to produce olefin fiber for use in such consumer items as upholstered furniture, and both indoor and outdoor carpeting.

00:23:19 Trademark Herculon, this fiber made important inroads into the carpet field as early as 1965, and has been joined by a staple fiber for indoor-outdoor use.

00:23:42 Herculon has already captured an impressive share of the upholstery market, and keeps growing in importance each year.

00:23:52 A variation of the fiber shows promise in filling an important need for the clothing industry.

00:23:59 When market surveys revealed that the tastes of European consumers were trending toward those of Americans, both in carpet and upholstery, a duplicate of the Oxford, Georgia plant was constructed in Terni, Italy, as a joint venture with Monty Edison to fill the need.

00:24:20 Since the dawn of time, man has found use for color for artistic and functional purposes.

00:24:27 In today's world, Hercules' protective coating materials and pigments have become an inseparable part of our everyday life.

00:24:37 Nitrocellulose helps make the durable, clear finish on furniture.

00:24:43 Ethelcellulose is used as a film former in flexible lacquers and printing inks.

00:24:50 Over 1,000 Hercules imperial pigments find use in paints, textiles, papers, leather finishes, and printing inks.

00:25:00 Magnetic iron oxides are used for recording tapes, magnetic inks, and then coating tapes.

00:25:08 Drachenfeld ceramic colors are marketed all over the world for use in decorating and labeling glass, for coloring all types of clayware, and for use in high-temperature plastics requiring heat and light stability in excess of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

00:25:26 Radiant fluorescent pigments create extra impact for plastics and printing inks, for use in packaging and other attention-arresting requirements.

00:25:42 When Hercules began, it offered a single line of products in commercial explosives.

00:25:49 But through evolution, innovation, and invention, hundreds of new products have joined the Hercules family.

00:25:57 In fact, more than 50% of Hercules' worldwide sales today are in products that did not exist 20 years ago.

00:26:05 Naturally, this product evolution has meant solid, consistent growth.

00:26:10 Hercules is big. With sales around a billion dollars a year, it ranks among the top 10 of more than 11,500 chemical manufacturers.

00:26:21 Historically, Hercules has refused to be satisfied with the ordinary or to limit its horizons.

00:26:28 Rather, we strive to take our technologies and our skills and the accumulated know-how of our chemical production and apply them to other areas, to other markets and opportunities, to make things happen.

00:26:41 This has taken us into fields beyond the range of ordinary chemical companies.

00:26:46 Hercules has become involved with the building materials industry in the production of Snowden lightweight aggregates.

00:26:53 Just a few years ago, concrete blocks weighed over 40 pounds each.

00:26:58 But now, with no sacrifice in strength, blocks made of Snowden lightweight aggregate weigh as little as 23 pounds.

00:27:07 This makes the blocks easier to handle for assembly into walls and reduces the cost of footings and steel framework in the buildings.

00:27:16 From garden apartments to skyscrapers, Snowden lightweight aggregate fills the need.

00:27:25 This is Delnet, a nonwoven polyethylene net which has made inroads into a number of industries and is destined to grow into many more.

00:27:37 In textile applications, it's used as a fusible interline.

00:27:43 In the medical world, it finds application in burn and wound dressings and urological drapes.

00:27:50 In the food industry, it's an effective and an attractive means of containing items which must be cooked in contact with water.

00:27:58 It's also used in processing cheese.

00:28:01 And Delnet can be laminated to films, paper, crepe paper, cardboard, wood, and aluminum foil for packaging and decorative display uses.

00:28:12 Does this sound like an ordinary chemical company?

00:28:19 Most credit cards are plastic, but that's not the common denominator that brought Hercules into this nonchemical venture.

00:28:27 Data Source Corporation is a wholly owned producer and marketer of automated credit card readers for credit verifications.

00:28:37 In a simple operation, the card is verified as a valid instrument.

00:28:42 The purchase is compared against credit limits, the purchase is authorized, and the amount can be entered in the accounting department.

00:28:50 And all this is done in a few seconds.

00:28:53 Hercules Data Source Corporation allows banks, oil companies, department stores, and other major credit card issuers to shift to a fully automatic credit authorization and descriptive billing system.

00:29:07 Hercules has been a pioneer in waste reclamation ever since the early 1900s, when the company began to turn waste stumps into a wood naval store's operation.

00:29:18 Today, AWT, or Advanced Waste Treatment Systems, is one of the company's newest ventures into the waste treatment field.

00:29:27 In a unique approach, this small treatment plant becomes an integral part of a residential development, blending architecturally with the topography and the homes in the area, yet only occupying the space of a single building lot.

00:29:44 Application of this miniaturized waste treatment system can be made to existing housing areas as well as new developments.

00:29:54 These broadening fields of interest are an indication of the direction for future growth of Hercules.

00:30:01 Sure, we're an important chemical company, but we've taken the managerial skills and the technical expertise that have made us a leader in the chemical business and applied them to other areas, such as the needs of the nation in space and defense, to the Minuteman, the Polaris, and the Poseidon deterrent missile systems.

00:30:21 And we've taken this experience to other areas that seem to need a systems approach.

00:30:29 That's why we step boldly into environmental engineering and into the design and construction of machinery and total packaging systems for plastics.

00:30:39 It's why, in the communications field, we've designed a complete system for present and future underground installations.

00:30:46 And we don't plan to stop there.

00:30:48 We recognize that today's materials and methods may well be superseded overnight.

00:30:54 Our own company history has taught us the certainty of change.

00:30:58 And so Hercules will continue to seek opportunities for growth and move boldly to explore each one.

00:31:06 The shadowy realm between the old and the new is rich with challenge and unfilled needs.

00:31:13 The rewards await those who are first to apply new knowledge to meet them.

00:31:20 Here they are, these Hercules.