Kickstart: More honors for Teel

Medical molder Teel Plastics LLC has been named Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year, recognizing its response to demand for products needed to fight COVID-19 and its ability to grow through the pandemic.

Baraboo, Wis.-based Teel won in the large business category, following up on its selection as the small business Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year in 2015.

Teel, an injection molder and extruder, opened a new plant in February 2021 while expanding capacity to make nasopharyngeal swabs used in COVID test kits. (Teel also won the Plastics News Excellence Award in Customer Service for 2021.)

Jerry Pritchett, Teel's CEO, thanked employees and highlighted some of the challenges the team was able to overcome, including supply chain issues and rising costs.

"Our people worked hard through the pandemic and took on incredible challenges for customers," Pritchett added.

The plastics industry has been investing in Industry 4.0 for years. But maybe the industry should also be investing in Education 4.0.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, corporate and political leaders are taking on the "reskilling revolution initiative" right alongside issues related to taxes, international business, global conflicts, inflation, food security and, of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On the first day of its 2022 forum, leaders looked at the shortfalls in education programs to teach reading and math at places such as remote villages and refugee camps — funding the "last mile" of education, as Lady Mariéme Jamme, a business leader and founder of iamtheCODE initiative, said — as well as the need for continuing training for people already on the job.

Education 4.0 focuses on providing enhanced education globally by 2030 for people at all levels. Employees given a chance to learn new skills are less likely to walk away from their jobs, said Bob Moritz, global chairman of PwC.

"If they're engaged, they're more likely to lean in," he said.

When NASA sent the tiny Ingenuity helicopter to Mars in 2020, it wasn't even sure if the machine made using carbon fiber from Toray Advanced Composites could even take off in the thin atmosphere of Mars.

Not only did Ingenuity manage to fly in April 2021, but also it soared past expectations that it could make as many as five flights. In a year, the helicopter has flown 28 times, covering more than 4 miles.

"Our helicopter is even more robust than we had hoped," Josh Ravich, Ingenuity's machenical engineering lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote in a 2021 blog post.

But now dust and extreme cold may bring an end to its flights, NASA said in a May 6 update.