Leadership Spotlight: Protecting People. Strengthening Trust. Shaping the Next Century.

“Safety is the cornerstone of everything we do.”

That principle has shaped how Kuraray America, Inc. operates our plants, our growth, and how we think about the future.

Years ago, the most common questions I heard on the plant floor was simple: What's the absolute maximum we can produce in a year?

I don't hear that question anymore.

Shift in Mindset

Kuraray America learned that running at ‘101 miles an hour’ until something breaks isn't a strategy. Safe, stable operations, keeping things at a designed optimal level turned out to be better for our people, for our customers, for our plants, and for our environment.

That shift in thinking is one of the things I'm most proud of as we mark Kuraray’s 100th year.

Building a Safety Organization Around Trust

When I joined Kuraray America in 2014, the company had recently acquired DuPont's vinyl businesses, we didn't have a corporate HSES group. There were only three of us. Senior leadership recognized that as the company grew, we needed to align practices and share what was working and what needed to be improved across our sites.

We built a team around a simple idea. We're here to create value, not just find problems to solve.

Today, across Kuraray America's operations, about 50 people focus on health, safety, and the environment. We operate as internal consultants. The business units are our customers.

My message at every plant is the same. How can I help?

That approach is how we earn trust, and trust is everything in this work. If people see us as enforcers, they stop talking. If they see us as partners, communication opens up. That's when the real improvements happen.

Leadership in Action

One thing that sets Kuraray America apart is our CEO, Hans Vandommele, and his visible leadership. Hans is one of the most present CEOs I have worked with, especially when it comes to spending time onsite and staying connected to what is happening across our operations.

Staying Connected to Our Sites

For our Texas sites, Hans and I attend monthly onsite meetings, separate from regular plant visits. He and I walk every plant on a regular cadence creating opportunities to see safety practices in action, listen to employees, and better understand each site’s needs firsthand.

For our non-Texas based sites, including our VECTRAN site in South Carolina and Advanced Interlayer Solutions (AIS) sites in North Carolina and West Virginia, we visit twice a year and host regular calls to stay aligned, and continue building consistency across the organization.

Learning Across Locations

During our plant walkthroughs, employees from other business units are invited, providing teams with the opportunity to observe and learn from safety practices in action across different sites.

When a Bayport team has chance to observe how our EVAL team approaches a 5S program, they have the opportunity to discuss the idea, customize for their site and potentially apply to their own environment.

Best practices are more likely to be adopted faster when people see them firsthand.

Turning Engagement Into Action

In addition to site visits and walkthroughs, I hold monthly Plant Manager HSES meeting with all KAI sites. These meetings are focused on strategy and problem solving, creating a consistent space for leaders to address growth opportunities and share site-level insights.

Together, these touchpoints help create a more connected and visible safety culture where leaders stay close to the work, teams learn from one another, and safety improvements can be shared thoughtfully across the organization.

A Culture of Speaking Up

The single behavior that has made the biggest difference in keeping people safe is total incident reporting.

Early on, I worked with a production team that identified a recurring problem but hadn't reported it because they considered it minor. But our incident management system exists for exactly that reason, to catch patterns, find root causes, and put fixes in place before something minor turns serious.

Our approach is non-punitive. We want people to speak up and use their stop-work authority when something doesn't look right, even if it slows things down.

That commitment reflects how we actually operate.

The numbers tell the story. In 2025, we recorded the fewest recordable incidents in company history.

Kuraray America earned 16 Texas Chemistry Council and Texas Chemistry Alliance awards in 2025 for safety, operational excellence, and workforce engagement, recognition that reflects the consistency of this effort across our sites.

Now we're raising the bar with KuraSafe, a three-year initiative adapted from a safety culture program implemented by Kuraray Europe GmbH. KuraSafe focuses on 7 essential elements:

• Management commitment
• Safety communication
• Facility inspection
• Tracking and metrics
• Employee engagement
• Behavioral safety
• Incident investigation

The philosophy is straightforward and reflects Safety in Action. Every person looks out for the person next to them.

Environmental Responsibility in Action

The same discipline behind a strong safety culture also shapes how we approach our environmental responsibilities.

Kuraray America became the first petrochemical company in the United States certified StormReady® by the National Weather Service, and we maintain proactive hurricane shutdown plans to protect air and water quality in the communities where we operate.

These aren’t just emergency protocols. They reflect decades of embedding environmental responsibility into how we run our plants.

Safe, stable operations can also play a direct role in reducing waste generation and improving energy efficiency. This focus supports the Kuraray Group’s Medium-Term Management plan, “PASSION 2026”, where sustainability has been a strategic priority.

To support this work, we’ve added a permanent environmental responsibility role within HSES. Our environment team has also worked with procurement and special projects to improve logistics and identify beneficial reuse partners for waste streams.

We’re early in this work and are honest about that, but the direction is clear: carbon net zero by 2050 and a daily commitment to our promise to act for people and the planet.

What Carries Us Forward

I've worked at about half a dozen companies and Kuraray America is different. This company values its people, and that trust goes both ways. It's not complicated, but it's rare. We built our strategic plan around a simple idea: make Kuraray America a great place to work.

For me, that starts with trust.

Trust that every person here matters and that safe, stable operations aren't just a goal but a reflection of who we are. It means running things right not because a regulation requires it, but because that's the standard we hold ourselves to.

I believe that commitment carried this company through its first hundred years and will carry us through the next.

Vance Darr, Director of Health, Safety, Environment & Security (HSES), Kuraray America, Inc.