He subsequently became vice president of worldwide marketing product management for GE Appliances in 1991, vice president and general manager of GE Plastics Americas commercial division in 1992, and vice president and general manager of GE Plastics Americas in 1993.

FORBES: Jeffrey Immelt

Eventually the U.S. will come around, too, since it must replace as much as 50 gigawatts of existing nuclear power by midcentury. (One very large power plant produces a gigawatt.) "Describe to me how it works by 2040 if you don't have new nuclear plants built, " says John Rice, the 48-year-old vice chairman, who started out with Immelt in GE's plastics division.

FORBES: GE Turns Green

In 1989 Dow's materials-engineering center beat out GE for the chance to build, using plastics, a riding lawn mower for John Deere.

FORBES: Chemical transformation