Eastman history

During the 1930s, Tennessee Eastman began to make pivotal contributions to its parent company’s Rochester facilities, beginning with its manufacture of cellulose acetate in 1930.

That year, 1932, also was the first year Tennessee Eastman’s trade sales exceeded its sales to Kodak.

By 1940 Tennessee Eastman was recording nearly $30 million in annual sales, an exponential increase from the $1.95 million generated 10 years earlier.

He remained chairman of Tennessee Eastman until his death in 1953.

With filter tow sales leading the way, Tennessee Eastman registered $244 million in annual sales in 1960, continuing to record exponential leaps in annual revenues decade by decade.

In 1968 the Eastman Chemicals Division of Eastman Kodak Company was formed, bringing together the various chemical concerns within Kodak’s corporate structure and unifying them as a division.

With this collection of companies banded together, annual sales generated by the division shot upward, swelling to $588 million in 1970, a revenue total derived in large part from the production of filter tow and polyester fibers.

In 1983, Eastman opened the first commercial coal gasification facility in the United States at its Kingsport plant site to produce chemicals from syngas rather than petroleum.

McCall, Ron, Eastman Chemical Company: Years of Glory, Times of Change, Rochester: Eastman Kodak Company, 1990.

Public Company Incorporated: 1993 as Eastman Chemical CompanyEmployees: 17,495Sales: $4.32 billionStock Exchanges: New YorkSICs: 2821 Plastic Materials&Resins; 2823 Cellulosic Man-Made Fibers; 2869 Industrial Organic Chemicals, Nec;2819 Industrial Inorganic Chemicals, Nec

In 1994, Eastman was spun off from Eastman Kodak and became an independent corporation.

The "Chemicals from Coal Facility" at the Kingsport plant was recognized as a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society in 1995.

Also in 1997, Eastman Chemical Ltd., Singapore took steps toward establishing a niche in the burgeoning Chinese market, investing several hundred million dollars into new facilities in the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen, China.

Brister, Kathy, “Information Technology Grows in Importance at Eastman,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, March 4, 1999.

Eastman was determined to take advantage of the new technology, and in October 2000 it announced a plan to make its chemicals and polymers available through online business-to-business relationships with existing customers, as well as through its web site and a number of virtual marketplaces.

In early 2005, Eastman broke ground on the first world-scale manufacturing facility using IntegRex, a technology that reduces the number of intermediate process steps in producing PET resin.

The rich history of innovation continued in 2007 with the development of Eastman Tritan™ copolyester.

In July 2012, Eastman completed its acquisition of Solutia Inc., a manufacturer of performance materials and specialty chemicals, for $4.8 billion.

In December 2014, Eastman completed its acquisition of Taminco Corporation for $2.8 billion.

On the morning of October 4, 2017, an explosion occurred at its Kingsport Plant around the coal gasification building.

In 2019, Eastman began commercial-scale chemical recycling for a broad set of waste plastics that would otherwise be placed in a landfill or incinerated.

In 2020, Eastman will use carbon renewal technology to recycle millions of pounds of polyester carpet that would otherwise have been placed in a landfill.

In January 2021, Eastman announced plans to build a methanolysis plant that will convert polyester waste into durable products.