Kickstart: This is how you attract millennials

Everyone is time stressed. How, if you're also a working parent, do you find time to make it to a conference, still answer work calls, plus network, plus — of course — attend the sessions?

This year's Antec is offering something that will help remove at least some of the stress: free childcare.

At the Society of Plastics Engineers' annual event, set for March 29-April 2 in San Antonio, Texas, Antec organizers have teamed with Northside Sitters Club, an agency that has been around for 43 years, to provide childcare during sessions and networking events.

"Using this service allows you to attend sessions and networking events with confidence and peace of mind knowing your children are being cared for by experienced and dedicated childcare professionals," SPE says.

When General Motors first spun off its parts business, Delphi Automotive was a giant among auto suppliers. Ford's former parts division, given the name of Visteon Corp. when it spun off, was a similar behemouth.

But size isn't everything. Delphi downsized, and one of the divisions it spun off was its interiors business, given the name Inteva Products LLC.

During the Great Recession, as Delphi and Visteon was forced into bankruptcy to restructure, and suppliers up and down the product chain slimmed down and changed course to survive, Inteva moved along steadily, led by Lon Offenbacher, who had been with the interiors unit through GM, then Delphi before Inteva came around.

Plastics News named Offenbacher its Automotive Newsmaker of the Year, in part honoring the fact that Inteva has avoided the jolts and bumps of a changing auto industry.

For Inteva, Offenbacher places more value on being agile and innovative, and in building trust with customers, which in turn has led to more business.

"We've never failed a customer and because of that reputation we've had a number of programs come our way where somebody else did fail," Offenbacher told PN's Audrey LaForest in a profile.

Chevron-Phillips Chemical Co. knows about the need to train kids for tomorrow's workforce. And a $1.7 million donation to a Texas school district will go a long way to providing high school students with access to technology.

As Frank Esposito writes, Sweeney Independent School District will open the new Chevron Phillips Chemical CTE Center in the fall of this year. The center will consolidate career and technology classes already taught in the district in one building, a site currently under renovation.

Course offerings include classes focused on science, technology, engineering and math, as well as professional communications, agriculture, architecture and construction, business and health and science.

The donation also will help the district — which serves more than 2,000 students — cover fees associated with college entrance exams for students pursuing post-secondary education.