Pros
The people who I worked closely with were both very knowledgeable and friendly and tried to make a difference as tiny fish in an ocean. The work-life balance was great and management seemed to know that you had personal time for certain things.
Cons
Management doesn't have a spine, and they don't like being challenged when their subordinates bring up ideas or questions about the processes, people or methods their managing. The commercial team allows sales to be dropped without even blinking and then expects the Technology group to 'innovate' new products at the drop of a hat; however, when they do, they let the sales go to other competitors products because they're not interested in doing their job. There are one or two good leaders, but they're over shadowed by the poor team they're surrounded by who are living off of GE's name (as Momentive's quartz business used to be part of GE). Lax safety, or Managers who don't care about it. It's sad when it takes a scientist over 4 hours to get an MSDS (or now, an SDS) of a current product, but when they do, it's wrong (please tell me how fused quartz is flammable?). When this was brought to the attention of Managers, they didn't seem to care because it wasn't their job to deal with.