Company History and Overview

Resinall's history is largely the story of the life of Mr. John M. Godina, Sr. the company's founder. His is a true American success story having risen from humble beginnings to become a highly successful businessman.

John was born on September 29th, 1924, in a small West Virginia coal mining town. He left at the beginning of World War II to attend the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY from which he graduated in 1945. He married Elaine Zeigler the same year and shortly after joined Zeigler Chemical in a sales position. In 1951, he was instrumental in Zeigler's purchase of key mining areas in Utah. He played a major role in the commercial development and sale of Gilsonite (a fossil resin), particularly, to the publication printing industry. Under John's leadership, Zeigler became the second largest worldwide producer of Gilsonite.

John's involvement with the printing ink industry grew, when in 1966, Zeigler acquired a small resin manufacturing facility in Severn, North Carolina. Subsequently, Zeigler purchased the rosin maleic ester business of Shanco Resins which added resins for flexographic and packaging gravure inks to the Severn operation. In 1974, John was named president of Zeigler Chemical and proceeded to start production of hydrocarbon resins at the Severn facility.

John had always dreamed of building his own business. His dream became a reality when in 1981 he was able to acquire the Severn resin plant from Ziegler Chemical and left to start his own company which he named Resinall Corp.

To achieve his goal of building a successful resin company, he put together a management and technical team with the financial support needed to achieve his dream of building a state of the art resin manufacturing company. From the start he was uncompromising in his commitment to exceed environmental requirements in operations and to build an organization which would exceed customer expectation in product quality and service.

Resinall achieved initial commercial success with the introduction of novel resin technology. These new resins were called “Hybrid Resins,” because they combined hydrocarbon and rosin chemistries to provide a unique and cost effective balance of properties which could not be achieved through blending or compounding. With this initial success, in 1984 Resinall Corp purchased the resin manufacturing facility of Dixie Pine Chemicals located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The Hattiesburg site consisted of nearly one hundred acres with close proximity to major raw material sources and transportation.

Over the next years Resinall completely rebuilt and expanded both the Hattiesburg and Severn plants enabling them to produce a wide range of resins in solid and solution form – with the added security of manufacturing redundancy. Today these two US plants have a combined annual capacity of nearly 200 million pounds. In addition, new technical, operation and sales facilities were added at both locations strengthening our continued commitment to technical and operational innovation.

From the early nineteen nineties, Resinall had sold product in the European printing market through its major North American customers. Finally in 2001, the company formally expanded its operations to Europe with the formation of Resinall Europe bvba with headquarters in Brugge, Belgium. More recently, Resinall Europe bvba formed a joint venture with Rütgers Germany GmbH named Resinall Rütgers Resins GmbH with the goal of building a new resin manufacturing facility at the Rütgers plant in Duisburg, Germany.

Resinall is a private/family owned business. As with other aspects of the company, John Godina Sr. planned for an orderly transition to the next generation. For nearly ten years, the day to day business of the company has been managed by Mr. Lee Godina and the Senior Management team. Lee Godina joined the company shortly after its formation in 1981 and has worked closely with both his father and company management and has been an active part in the company’s growth and geographic expansion. So, when last year it became necessary for John Godina Sr. to retire due to poor health, the company and its operations were unaffected; it was simply business as usual. In this same spirit in 2008, Michael Godina, Lee Godina’s son, joined Resinall Corp in a junior executive position in the Stamford Corporate office to begin his training to represent the Godina family in Resinall’s continued future growth.

In the last thirty years, Resinall has grown from a small regional resin producer to become a major worldwide supplier of resins to many industries. Our success has been based on a combination of quality, technical innovation and strong customer relationships. Our goal is to continue the spirit which has fueled our growth as we expand into new products, markets and geographic areas.