Edwin F. Bushman
Consultant
Inducted 2005
Edwin F. Bushman (1919 – 2003) was an engineer and consultant in the plastics industry. He was born in Aurora, Illinois, to George J. and Emma Gengler Bushman. Edwin Bushman received a bachelor of science degree from the University of Illinois in Petroleum Geology and Chemistry with high honors in 1941. In 1941 and 1942, he did postgraduate studies at the California Institute of Technology. He married Louise Kathryn Peterson on January 3, 1946. Mr. Bushman lived and worked primarily in southern California.
Bushman was involved in the plastics industry beginning in the late 1930s. He designed and collaborated on numerous projects. During his early career, he assisted in designing and developing overhead storage compartments and lighting areas in commercial aircraft and airline food carts. He served in the War Department during World War II, working on military projects. In the early 1960s, he assisted in designing and developing helmets for the U.S. military and NASA. He worked on the design of fiberglass survival kits for the Boeing Airplane Company.
A pioneer in acrylic and fiberglass products, he obtained eight U.S. patents in plastic products, carbon, and colored glass fiber processes and applications. As a plastics engineer, he worked for Bell & Howell, Motor Products Corporation, General American Transportation, Molded Plastics Products, and the Lincoln Molded Plastics division of USS Chemicals. He spent 23 years as an independent plastics consultant in California. With George Epstein and Frances D. Tabrisky, he edited a text on Kevlar Composites in 1980.
Bushman actively promoted the plastics field and was a speaker at and organizer of numerous professional conferences. He received many awards, including the Society of Plastic Engineers’s Lundberg Award in 1981, and was named Western Plastics Man of the Year in 1972.
Areas of Expertise:
Plastic processing, Plastic design