Dow Corning & Dr. Stephanie Burns

For 28 years, Dow Corning has benefited from the intelligence, dedication, spirit and kindness of Dr. Stephanie A. Burns. She retired as chairman at the end of last year, and her coworkers are expressing their appreciation for all that she did to help make Dow Corning a growing, successful company and a great place to work.


Stephanie has a gift for recognizing global opportunities, and she had the vision and courage to advance Dow Corning’s mission — innovation to unleash the power of silicon to benefit everyone, everywhere — by combining the scientific and social benefits of chemistry.


At Dow Corning, her career spanned scientific research, science and technology leadership and business management. She has left a positive mark on many aspects of our company and in the last decade had the foresight to commit to a significant stake in renewable energy and spearhead investment in new geographic regions, including China, India, Russia, Turkey and Vietnam.


Starting with an intensive evaluation of the markets, Stephanie challenged the company’s leaders to determine the role Dow Corning might play in renewable energy. The result was an expansion into the green-power arena. The company’s reach included development of products for applications throughout the crystalline solar supply chain — including such critical innovations as life-extending, efficiency-boosting encapsulants for solar panels — a commitment to monosilane manufacture for thin-film cells and a portfolio of technology for the wind-power industry.


The planning led to expansion of the corporation’s Hemlock Semiconductor Group joint ventures both in Hemlock, MI, and in Clarksville, TN.


Under her leadership, we’ve set up innovative Solar Solution Centers in Michigan, California, Japan, Belgium, and Korea. Though Dow Corning’s solar focus is the materials business, these centers produce and rigorously test solar panels assembled at the sites. This enables the company to understand problems panel makers engage on their manufacturing lines and create products to solve them.


Stephanie led Dow Corning’s investment in construction of China’s largest siloxane manufacturing operation at the Zhangjiagang Integrated Silicone Manufacturing Site. The project was noteworthy for more than its size. The company partnered with one of its most significant competitors. The plant launched with state-of-the-art technology in late 2010.


The China investment is just one of many important measures Stephanie has initiated to expand Dow Corning’s global scale.


The company has opened a business and technology center in Shanghai, acquired silicon metal processing sites in Brazil and expanded its specialty chemical production capacity in growing economies.


Stephanie has not confined her influence to intra-company matters. Beginning in 2008, she advocated job creating expansion and development of advanced solar manufacturing in the United States.


In 2009, she received White House invitations to represent Dow Corning and sometimes industry in general, at forums that sought advances in understanding the promise of solar and the job creation potential of renewable energy technology.


President Barack Obama has appointed her to the President’s Export Council, the principal national advisory committee on international trade. The council, created in 1973, advises the president on government policies that affect U.S. trade performance, promotes export expansion and is a forum for discussion and resolution of trade-related problems among the business, industrial, agricultural, labor and government sectors.


In addition to her advocacy of alternatives to fossil-fuel-generated electricity, she has consistently, internally and in public, strived to bring awareness of the megatrends shaping the future of the planet. She has urged an aggressive search for solutions — silicon-based and otherwise — to water scarcity, energy poverty, urban crowding and disease.


Her vision has translated into business success. Dow Corning’s sales grew to the 2010 level of nearly $6 billion from $3.37 billion at the end of her first full year as CEO. Dow Corning’s 2010 net income reached $866 million, up from $238 million in that time.


The chemical industry has acknowledged her accomplishments.


In 2001, she received the Vanguard Award from the Chemical Education Foundation in recognition of her advocacy of science, math and technology education.


In 2011, she became the first woman awarded the prestigious International Palladium Medal. The American unit of the French Société de Chimie Industrielle established the honor in 1958 to acknowledge individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the chemical industry.


Stephanie, we thank you for your service and dedication to our company. We wish you a long, happy and healthy retirement!


— The employees of Dow Corning Corporation