PRESS RELEASE

Christopher Morrissey
Sun Chemical
Phone: 708-236-3533
chris.morrissey@na.sunchem.com

John McKeown Joins Sun Chemical As Senior Vice President, People Services

Fort Lee, NJ - October 15, 2002 -- John L. McKeown has joined Sun Chemical Corporation as Senior Vice President, People Services, responsible for creating a high performance organization and making Sun Chemical one of the most attractive places to work in every region where it operates. Mr. McKeown will report directly to Wes Lucas, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Lucas noted, "Mr. McKeown is a world-class Human Resources executive with over 25 years of experience in large international companies, including British Leyland/Rover Group, Campbell Soup Company and most recently, Lucent Technologies. He comes to Sun Chemical with a fundamental knowledge and tool kit in many of the best practices that we are looking for as we improve how we develop, reward, train, compensate, and organize our people. With his focus on global organizations and extensive experience in Europe and the U.S., he is a good fit with Sun's emphasis on people as the key driver of our future performance."

Mr. McKeown's background is varied with experiences in a many different roles and organizations. Most recently, he was Vice President, Human Resources at Lucent Technologies where he held several key positions since joining the company in 1998. He was Lucent's senior Human Resources executive for all international activities, where he was responsible for 36,000 people in 55 countries. He had many accomplishments, most notably the creation of a world-class people services capability for those 36,000 people, and the integration of 29 acquisitions during his leadership. In addition, John was overall responsible as the Vice President, Human Resources of Lucent's Optical Networking Group's 10,000 employees. John led the division's restructuring and transformation into 14 strategic business units, and created a high performance culture through new training programs, processes, and compensation programs.

Before joining Lucent, Mr. McKeown held several key Human Resources roles within the Campbell Soup Company from 1992 to 1998, where he gained valuable experience within this leading brand company known for its world-class people services.

Previously, Mr. McKeown worked at Grand Metropolitan in London, England as the senior Human Resources leader for their dairy business. He also was associated with British Leyland/Rover Group. As the senior Human Resources person at the company's Longbridge plant, he successfully implemented self-directed work teams, Total Quality Management, quality circles, Just In Time operating practices, and Six Sigma tools.

Mr. McKeown was educated at Warwick University, Coventry, England where he earned a Bachelor of Law degree in 1976 and at Wolverhampton University (UK), where he earned a Post Graduate IPD (Personnel Management) Diploma.