Arnold Wilkie
Lifetime Technical Achievement Award
2024
Hills, Inc.
Arnold Wilkie has a distinguished career in advancing yarn, fiber, and nonwoven technologies since 1970. Since 1988, he has been President and Owner of Hills, Inc. where he has sustained their innovative culture. Wilkie has over 40 patents and applications covering yarns, bicomponent fibers, ultra-fine fibers, nanofibers, dissolvable filaments, meltblown nonwovens, and polymer processing innovations. He established Hills as a leading innovator in bicomponent fiber nonwovens and in the equipment to produce these materials. During Wilkie’s time leading Hills, their pilot capabilities have become well-known and highly regarded for enabling material innovations.
Many of his patents pertain to the development of equipment solutions that enable the production of complex bi- and multi-component fiber structures. These solutions include the method of forming a continuous filament spun-laid web, the method and apparatus for producing polymer fibers and fabrics including multiple polymer components, the method and apparatus for controlling airflow in a fiber extrusion system, and controlling the dissolution of dissolvable polymer components in plural component fibers.
Arnold Wilkie, President, Hills, Inc., earned his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and an MBA from the University of West Florida. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in Florida, and has been engaged in the synthetic fibers industry since 1970. The first 17 years were with the Monsanto Company, where he held positions in Fiber Process Engineering, Fiber Product R&D, and Product Management. Since 1988, he has been a majority Owner and President of Hills, Inc., a 52-year-old company located in West Melbourne, Florida, specializing in the development, manufacture, and supply of advanced custom fiber extrusion equipment. Wilkie has been involved with and supported The Nonwovens Institute, since its founding in 1991 as the Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center (NCRC), with Hills joining as a Member in 2001.
