The WACKER ACADEMY Team of Instructors
Theoretical expertise and practical experience are the cornerstones of the WACKER ACADEMY team. With backgrounds in sales or technology, our experts come to the table with extensive application knowledge. They are also trained instructors and moderators with a sixth sense for current trends and market developments.
Instructors for Composite Materials and Molding
Adolfo Larrazabal
Adolfo joined WACKER in 1999 as a textiles sales manager and for 13 years was responsible for various WACKER SILICONES market segments. He developed the region’s personal care business and, in 2008, lived in Colombia, where he helped establish the Colombia office by conducting a market study of the region. In 2012, he moved to Brenntag Latam (a champion WACKER distributor) for 4 years, developing the silicone and polymer markets. Adolfo rejoined WACKER in 2016 and is currently the senior sales manager for rubber and elastomers in the Middle Americas region. He has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Norman Riley
Beginning his career with Wacker in 1984, Norm served in technical roles for companies such as Wacker, Applied Silicone, Rhodia, Inc. and Bluestar Silicones over the 31 years that followed. He rejoined WACKER in 2015 as Technical Manager in Silicone Rubber responsible for providing technical service and training to silicone rubber fabricators and end-users as well as formulation and applications development for LSR and HCR. Norm attended California Lutheran University and holds a BA in Organic Chemistry.
Dr. Sabin-Lucian Suraru
Dr. Sabin-Lucian Suraru studied chemistry at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg, where he subsequently worked on the synthesis of organic semiconductors as part of his doctoral thesis. After a 1.5-year postdoc stint at the University of Washington in Seattle, he first worked at the Flint Group in the flexographic printing-plate division. After joining WACKER SILICONES in 2018, he initially worked as a laboratory manager in research and development. As technical manager for Functional Additives, he has headed an applications laboratory since 2023, looking after customers in the adhesives and composites market segments.