J. Michael Jusbasche, CEO of Houston-based ALTIVIA, has over the past decade expanded the chemical manufacturing firm into a major force in the industry. One of the firm’s three co-founders in 1986, he has gone on to strategically acquire numerous additional production facilities in moves that have brought the total number of separate ALTIVIA divisions to six, including departments focused on petrochemicals, oxide chemicals, and ketones and additives.
Michael Jusbasche achieved a $125-million sale of most of ALTIVIA’s existing water treatment businesses to global distributor Brenntag in 2012, after which he set about the acquisition of several new businesses that have led to ALTIVIA’s growth into one of North America’s largest independently-operated chemicals producers.
In 2012, Mr. Jusbasche put ALTIVIA in a leading position as a ferric and ferrous sulfate supplier when he acquired a Houston plant from Finnish company Kemira Oyj. In 2015, he acquired Axiall Corporation’s phosgene derivatives production business in Houston-area LaPorte, Texas. He also acquired the former Sunoco petrochemical complex in Haverhill, Ohio, bringing one of the top producers of acetone, phenol, and alpha methylstyrene under ALTIVIA’s management.
Michael Jusbasche added an Institute, West Virginia, chemical production complex owned by the Dow Chemical Company to ALTIVIA’s assets in 2019. This 460-acre industrial park, formerly part of Dow’s Acetone Derivatives division, is among the largest-capacity production plants of its type. Its carbinol and ketone products are used in a wide range of applications in the pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries.
In 2020, Mr. Jusbasche acquired a Crosby, Texas, toll manufacturing and chemical intermediates producer complex from KMCO, further supporting ALTIVIA’s production of a range of surfactants, fuel additives, and other products with wide industrial usage. These facilities’ capacity for ethoxylation and distillation encompasses more than 30 reaction and distillation trains.
A graduate of Texas A&M University who went on to earn advanced degrees from Stanford University, Michael Jusbasche concentrated all his academic work on the chemical and petrochemicals industry.