Plastics Hall of Fame 2024: Nick Schott

Lowell, Mass. — Nick Schott did not commercialize any plastic products. And he did not invent a new breakthrough resin. But his fingerprints are all over generations of work in the plastics industry if you know where to look.

As a longtime professor and chair of the department of plastics engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Schott began his career in 1971 teaching a class in plastics processing. But he would find himself at the right place at the right time as the school, then known as Lowell Technological Institute, had ambitions to expand the program's curriculum and profile.

Schott, with a professor's mind for detail, can rattle off events that happened decades ago. At age 84, he's been retired since 2010.

For his contributions to plastics academia, Schott is a member of the Plastics Hall of Fame's class of 2024.

"I never expected it myself because I think a lot of people from the industry are the ones that, rightfully so, get the recognition. I think me being in academia is also part of the story of plastics, so I feel greatly honored," Schott said. "I was completely flabbergasted."

But a career in the classroom might not have happened if not for one particularly prickly boss Schott had just after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1965 with a degree in mechanical engineering. The fresh-faced graduate took a job with the U.S. Geological Survey, measuring water and snow levels in the High Sierra mountains.

As Schott explained, an accident while taking a measurement caused him to reevaluate and head back to higher education. It had seemed like his boss was more concerned about the equipment than Schott himself after the mishap. "The fortuitous part, I found out that the boss cared more about a 100-pound weight than he cared about me," he recalled. "So I decided to go to apply to grad school."

Schott landed at the University of Arizona, where he graduated with both a master's degree and doctorate in chemical engineering before landing a teaching job at Lowell as an instructor.

Located along both sides of the Merrimack River, UMass Lowell has grown to become one of the higher-profile schools in the country when it comes to plastics education, but that was not always the case. Both the university and Schott grew in profile as the instructor became an associate professor, assistant professor and then full-fledged professor.

He ultimately became chair of the plastics engineering department, spending five three-year terms in that position during his 40 years at the school.

Those years as department chair allowed Schott to lead the plastics engineering program forward, but they also required much more time.

"You are much busier. Your flexibility and your time is much more constrained. You have to figure out how to make the department prosper and grow," he said, including outreach in the plastics community to attract support.

"Nick Schott's greatest professional accomplishments relate to his leadership that has helped make Lowell a leader in plastics engineering education and research. His vision and ability to find practical solutions to issues that arise between students, staff, faculty, alumni and administrators remain unequaled," said Robert Malloy in his nomination of Schott to the hall of fame. Malloy is a professor emeritus and past chair of the department of plastics engineering.

Schott also raised the profile of the department by traveling extensively overseas to promote the program and forging partnerships with other universities, he said.

"You, Nick, have impacted so many lives in the plastics engineering world. Our alums are successful because of wonderful insight you provided them," said Sally Washburn, senior director of development at UMass Lowell. "It is a legacy, and that is something we are really proud of in this department."

Schott first caught the plastics bug during a summer internship at a DuPont facility in Texas in 1968 while in grad school.

"That was an eye-opening job because it was where DuPont took its customers to train them about how to use their resins — to do the processing, the testing, the development. That was the most interesting job because DuPont was a world leader in plastics testing, processing, design, development. I learned a lot, and I made use of it," Schott said.

After graduating from UC Berkeley in 1971, Schott expected to land a job with DuPont after interviewing there. But a recession caused the company to enact a hiring freeze just as Schott was looking for a job. Life had a different plan, and Schott used his experiences and connections made in academia to land the job in Lowell.

"I got hired to teach plastics processing theory, which is essentially the mathematical analysis and the engineering analysis of the process. I specialized in single-screw extrusion," he remembered. There were also labs and a course on safety he suggested to the school in those earliest of days.

"It was very exciting. But it was also what you have to call innovative because you had a lot of constraints," he said.

In other words, money and resources were at a premium and required Schott to get creative to better teach the students in his early days. "You have to be innovative. You just can't say, 'I have no money and it's tough luck; I can't do anything.' You have to have that innovation, that get-up-and-go to figure out how to get things done," he said.

Schott, it turns out, learned that skill set by necessity while growing up.

Schott is a first-generation immigrant, coming to the United States in 1952 at age 12 from an area in what is now Serbia, but then part of Yugoslavia. He made the journey on an old troop transport ship across the Atlantic Ocean. Money was tight in those days, so much so that Schott initially went to City College of San Francisco, where tuition was free, to initially get an associate degree.

By the time he arrived in Lowell, Schott was not afraid to roll up his sleeves to get something done or convince plastics businesses to donate to the program, for example. One time he even resurfaced an asphalt parking lot himself at the school.

"I felt my calling was being a professor, being in academia. And I was very happy doing it," Schott said. "I had it all."