Detroit Colour Council Past Officers & Recognitions

Cari Coffer - Past President
Color Experience: Over 18 years working as a Craftsmanship and Appearance Engineer. Currently employed by Mahindra North American Technical Center in Troy, MI. Previously, Cari was an Appearance Engineer at BOS Automotive Products, Inc. in Rochester Hills, MI.  Cari manages all customer accounts for Appearance and Color/Grain/Gloss and manages all suppliers worldwide to develop new products/colors. Previous employment in the industry was at Venture Industries and Magna, where she was responsible for similar functions.

Education:  Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan State University and dual Masters Degrees in Marketing and MBA from Walsh College.

Lisa Benedict - President
Color Experience: Over 30 years of automotive design working at General Motors.  Currently employed with the Design Quality Appearance team.   Lisa manages several vehicle lines for Appearance definition, responsible to coordinate appearance attributes with materials engineering, global design and the release communities.  Through her career with General Motors she has held several positions all related to color and appearance engineering.  Lisa also dabbles in freelance residential interior color consulting and design.

Education:  BBA  and  AA Residential and Commercial Design Management – Northwood University, Midland, MI

Major areas of study included material and textiles for commercial and industrial uses, and architectural design and layout.

Jeff Alspach - Vice President
Color Experience:  Jeff Alspach has been working with color in 3 different industries for over 30 years. He has mainly worked in R&D serving sales, marketing, advertising, and manufacturing. He has played many roles such as color control and development, process engineering, programming, and color systems development. He currently works for Axalta Coatings as Principal Manufacturing Improvement Design. He continues to serve on the DCC board and is chairman of the SAE color and appearance committee to update SAE J1545 and J361. He also is a member of ASTM, ISCC, and SAE.
Frank Pizzo - Treasurer
Position: Treasurer

Color Experience: 20 years in the Automotive Coatings World and 4 years in the General Industrial Coatings market.

Bio: Currently employed with BASF as the General Motors Color Program Manager, responsible for new BASF Color Developments and secondary matches with GM Design and Engineering groups from inception through launch.

Sabrina Morris - Secretary
Color Experience: Sabrina has worked in automotive coatings for 5 years. She is currently employed with Axalta Coating Systems as a Color Product Engineering Specialist serving the Light Vehicle OEM segment. In this role she is responsible for managing the development of new exterior body colors. This includes color styling, automotive color trend analysis, color matching, color formulation and adjustments, material testing, and color standardization.

Education: Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Engineering Sciences from Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.

Christie Navarre - Board
Color Experience: Over 12 years working with color formulation of coatings and quality control in the automotive industry. Currently employed by Thierry Corporation in Royal Oak. Manages all customer accounts for the paint division and plasma treatment technology. Responsible for operations and quality control for the production of OEM exterior and interior paint color standards. Also responsible for quality control of interior masters of all commodities.

Previous employment in the industry was in the R&D lab at Kay Automotive Graphics, where she was responsible for color matching and formulation.

Education:  Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan State University.

James Hall - Education
Color Experience: Works as an engineer for General Motors in the Vehicle Systems – Paint organization.

Responsible for exterior body color development. Includes assembly plant color processing, durability testing and color standards. Previous color engineering assignments in GM’s Interior Engineering organization and GM Design. Past President of the Detroit Colour Council. Current Chairman of Detroit Colour Council Education Committee. Worked with Bill Longley to create the Detroit Colour Council Metallics Course.

Education: Bachelor Degree from Wayne State University.

Don Castle - Board
Color Experience: Over 50 years in the automotive business. 40 years with GM. Considerable experience with trim products.
Last 15 plus years in Sales( JS Chamberlain & Assoc., Inc ) which included painted automotive plastic products
Memberships at this time – ESD, MI.State Bar, AARP

Education:
ME from GMI (Now Kettering).
JD from Detroit College of Law (Now MSU).

Tracy Metivier - Membership
Color Experience: Over 8 years working in various color focused positions in the Metro Detroit Area. Currently employed by General Motors Company, Design Center in Warren, MI. With this position she manages the Appearance Definition database and is responsible to coordinate appearance attributes with materials engineering, global design and the release communities. Previously, Tracy was a Craftsmanship, Color and Appearance Specialist with FCA, Auburn Hills, MI. Tracy got her initial start at The Parade Company in Detroit working on projects involving precise color mixing to create and build company logos for custom exhibits at events including NAIAS. Additional companies she has been part of include Autoneum, Novi, and Benecke-Kaliko, Auburn Hills, involving similar color and design responsibilities. From time to time Tracy also works on freelance photography, interior design, and graphic projects for pleasure.

Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with Furniture/Design major focus from The College For Creative Studies, Detroit, MI

Bob Santine - Website

Color Experience:  Bob has over 25 years experience in color measurement instrumentation sales, training, and support. Currently employed by BYK Gardner USA as the Regional Sales Manager for the Ohio Valley region.  Previously held a similar position with X-Rite and HunterLab.  Past President of the Detroit Colour Council.

Nick Lena - Board

Nick Lena has degrees in both Engineering and Marketing. He joined GTI Graphic Technology, Inc. as Director of Color Technology in October 2011. In this role Nick oversees the LightSupport Calibration and Re-certification Service Program and also provides technical and sales support for both the Graphic Arts and Color and Appearance products. Nick joined GTI from Gamma Scientific where he was the Product Line Manager for Commercial Lighting, Military and Display Measurement. He previously worked for KonicaMinolta as Director of Technology and Business Unit Manager for Radiometric Products and Solutions. In this role he was responsible for the technical support and marketing efforts for all Spectrophotometers, Spectroradiometer and Colorimeter products.
Nick was also with GretagMacbeth for 20 years as Lighting and Radiometric Product Marketing Manager. At GretagMacbeth he developed and taught over 300 seminars on topics including Fundamentals of Color, and Appearance, Color Measurement and Light and Light Measurement. He was the author of their still current course books, The Fundamentals of Color and Appearance and has been the guest speaker for such organizations as Detroit Color Council, Color Marketing Group, Estee Lauder, Sikorsky, General Motors, Mattel, Disney, Honda, Jaguar, Boeing, Bayer, American Greeting, Microsoft, American Gem Trading Association, Frigidaire, Steelcase, The American Society of Appraisers and The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists.
He is an active committee member of The American Society of Testing Materials, (ASTM) E12 Color and Appearance committees and is the Chairman of the ASTM E12.11 Visual Methods Committee. Nick has recently been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Detroit Color Council.
Nick has been a member of the Illumination Engineering Society of North America, (IES) since 1978, a member of IES Committee on Color and has developed webinars on lighting measurement and the color metrics used for LEDs on the IES Education web site. In addition Nick was an active member of the ANSI / ISO TC42 standardization efforts on Visual Evaluation of Color and Uniformity in the Graphic Arts and participated in AATCC RA36 on Lighting Communications for Textiles and Apparel and was an advisor to the CIE (International Commission on Illumination) committee TC1-44 for Practical Daylight Sources for Colorimetry,

Katie Miller - Board

Color Experience: Katie is currently employed by NPA Coatings Inc. as a Color Chemist II. She is responsible for the development of exterior body colors for the OEM segment. This includes color matching, color formulation and adjustments, material testing, color standardization, and customer support for new color trials. Prior to her current role she held Coatings Chemist positions with both Sherwin Williams and NPA Coatings where she was responsible for all aspects of coatings development.

Education: Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from Cleveland State University.