Elastomer entrepreneur Michel Baulé passes away

With great sadness Covestro and its employees learned about the death of Michel Baulé, entrepreneur in the cast polyurethane industry, who has passed away January 13th at the age of 79.

"Our thoughts and condolences are with Michel’s family," said Thomas Braig, Head of Elastomers at Covestro. "We will forever and fondly remember the entrepreneur, the exceptional man and our friend who was at the origin of Covestro Elastomers."

Graduating with a PhD in chemistry, the native of Cavaillon, France embarked on entrepreneurship in 1976 at the age of 33 by creating a moulding company for cast polyurethane parts in Romans-sur-Isère, France. Fate, circumstances and his passion for innovation made him establish a second business in 1983, specialising in the formulation of cast elastomers systems. Together with companions such as Philippe Jeantin, currently Head of the Machines business at Covestro Elastomers, Antonio Alvarez and Mauro Modugno, he then founded yet another business in 1987, dedicated to the design and manufacture of low pressure dispensing machines.

These businesses became a leader in its realm as a co-operation. It later divested its molding entity to its executives to become EXSTO, while Baulé, combining the material formulation and the machines manufacturing, successfully established a Joint Venture with the MaterialScience division of the Bayer company in 2008. In 2012, this turned into a merger and Baulé’s former business became officially part of the Bayer group. In 2015, it became part of the carve out of Covestro from its parent company Bayer. Today, this business finds its heritage in the Elastomers Business Entity of Covestro, still headquartering in Romans-sur-Isère.

"We pay tribute to the genius that was Michel Baulé, for inspiring dozens of innovations in the cast polyurethane industry, among them the development of three-components systems with quasi-MDI-prepolymers and many innovative processing concepts that lead us to maintain and promote the brand Baulé^® for our machine technology. He will be missed dearly," Abdel Arhzaf, Managing Director of Covestro Elastomers SAS, added.

After a valuable contribution to the growth of the cast polyurethane industry, Michel Baulé developed a family office called EXIMIUM which has maintained all its entrepreneurial culture through acquisitions and participations while developing financial activities and support services. Until his last days he remained very active and energetic in his entrepreneurial role.