Penn State Erie has close ties to plastics manufacturers

Erie, Pa. — Penn State Erie the Behrend College, is closely tied to plastics manufacturers, through its plastics engineering technology degree, internships and three-semester capstone projects that team students with an industry partner.

The industry ties pay off.

"What's so special at Behrend?" asked Oladipo Onipede, associate director of academics for the school of engineering. "What's special is, our students get jobs. That's one of our strengths, so we tend to focus on that a lot."

Onipede was a keynote speaker at Penn State Erie's Innovation and Emerging Plastics Technologies Conference, held June 19-20. The annual conference draws students and industry leaders from around the country to the campus in Erie. One machinery executive came from Germany to make a presentation.

The connection to industry is part of the historical fabric of Erie, a hotbed of plastics processors. Industry leaders approached the local college in 1984 about starting a plastics program. Local plastics executives put up an initial $1 million.

Those early supporters included Joseph Prischak, who founded what is now Erie's largest molding company, Plastek Industries Inc., and Hoop Roche Jr. of Erie Plastics Co.

Ten years later, the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology moved into a gleaming Plastics Technology Center. The highlight: a 10,500-square-foot plastics research and industrial lab packed with processing machinery. Penn State Erie leaders say it's the largest plastics training lab in the country.

Back in 1984, a lack of skilled workers plagued the plastics industry. Even in Erie, a region with a widely recognized plastics industry, key positions went unfilled. And that's the same problem today, plastics industry leaders say. It's even worse now because so many older plastics veterans are retiring.

Today, Penn State Erie enrolls about 160 students seeking the four-year plastics engineering technology degree.

The engineering graduates help the local manufacturing economy, Onipede said in his speech that kicked off the plastics conference.

"Many times, we look at the general Erie area as losing population, but I know students who are from outside the region that end up staying and working in the region," Onipede said. Graduating students from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and other cities get jobs and stay in the Erie area.

One big lure is easy access to Lake Erie and the picturesque beaches at Presque Isle State Park. Erie also has an amusement park near the lake, water parks, a casino, the minor league baseball Erie SeaWolves and the Erie Otters, a junior hockey team that often sends its young players to the NHL.

But access to jobs is the biggest draw.

"It's expensive to go to college, and you have to look at the return on investment for the students," Onipede said. "What are they going to do in the end? And this engagement with companies, I think we do that better than most schools in the country."

One key advantage, for the entire Penn State University system, is how the school handles intellectual property for research funded by private industry. Seven years ago, Penn State significantly changed its policy. If faculty members involved in the research agree, they sign off on the company retaining IP, said Jason Williams, assistant teaching professor in plastics.

The university won't claim the IP. The form is just a single page, he said.

U.S. universities have grappled with the IP issue and, historically, schools have enacted policies spelling out how academic researchers and the university interact on the issue. That can create a barrier to research funded by the private sector.

Williams, who ran his own product design company for a dozen years, said the other Erie plastics faculty members also came from the industry. That linkage, for teachers as well as alumni, helps fuel the research projects.

After all, the plastics engineering technology in Erie was started with the support of industry, 35 years ago.

"Most of our research funding comes from industry," Williams said. "And all of us come from industry, so that's just our nature to go back to where we worked with and who we worked with to get projects."

Williams recalls his own thinking from his design firm days: "When I had that company, my thought is, 'Hey I invented something for you. Guess what? You paid me for it. I would never have invented our product had you not come to me.' So the fact that you're paying me to do the work on the project and I invent something, that's my payment for the patent. So that's the philosophy I always had with it."

In some cases, the university and companies could agree to share the rewards from intellectual property, he said: For example, if university researchers were already working on a project and a company came and wanted to sponsor the research.

Penn State Erie isn't just about traditional students. The university also conducts plastics workshops and seminars for working people, called the Plastics Training Academy. The courses, which are taught by faculty members, typically run two or three days.

"The courses are designed specific for industry," said Michelle Hartmann, director of community and workforce programs. "Most of the participants are already employed and companies send them. And it's also really beneficial for people that are new to the industry. Even seasoned people who either need to learn new technology or break bad habits. We also get salespeople come to learn plastics and be better salespeople."

Workshops include plenty of hands-on work in Penn State Erie's processing lab.

Hartmann said companies from all over the world send employees to the courses, spreading the word about Erie to other countries.

"Sometimes we structure the courses so that we have, for example, the injection molding principles and then the injection molding troubleshooting to complement together. So they could stay for a week," she said.

Plans for more majors

Penn State Erie continues to add to its offerings. Onipede, the academics leader for the school of engineering, explained plans for new degree programs at the Erie university during his talk at the plastics technologies conference in June. He is an associate professor of mechanical engineering.

A bachelor's degree in polymer engineering and science could launch next fall. The degree would focus on polymer materials.

A master's degree in mechanical engineering could happen in the next few years, Onipede said. Also coming: a minor in biomedical engineering. And school leaders are "looking very seriously" at a bachelor's degree in robotics and automation engineering.

Tim Kurzweg, director of the school of engineering at Penn State Erie, said manufacturing companies want more people with automation skills. That is a very broad area, and officials will need to narrow down the focus to meet the specific needs of Erie-area companies, he said.

That means local plastics processors will be play a big role once again.

"It has really just come out of talking to our industry friends and a lot of plastics companies," Kurzweg said.

In order to graduate, every plastics student has to complete an intensive project covering three semesters. Called capstone, it is like a dissertation for engineers.

"They start as juniors and they finish as seniors," said Brad Johnson, plastics training director who has taught at the university for 25 years.

He said the plastics program typically has about 70 or 80 students doing capstones at any given time.

"We get all these proposals in — some of them are by faculty, some of them by outside people at companies," Johnson said. "And the first week of class, we'll give the students a list of proposals with a short description and they go through and they rank ones they want to do. They don't always get their top pick, but we try to get their top five."

Faculty members make up the teams of two or three students to work on a project. Each team works with the sponsor to define the scope.

Right away, the students do a literature search to find out what's been done before in that area of research and innovation.

They give frequent presentations, as all capstone students meet in a conference room at Penn State Erie once a week.

"If it's sponsored by a company, that varies. Sometimes they'll have weekly phone calls or weekly meetings with the company. Sometimes they might meet once or twice a semester," he said.

Johnson said industry partners for the projects come from across the country, often spurred by alums in the plastics industry who did their own capstones and have ideas about research that is still needed.

The five buildings in Knowledge Park bring together companies, faculty, staff and together in a "open lab" setting. Much of the plastics-related work happens in the Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Center, where half of the building is leased to companies doing research.