Rocheleau bringing awareness of never settling to family business

Back when the family company was known as Rocheleau Tool and Die, Nicholas Rocheleau started sweeping the building's floors at age 18 as he pursued his college education in industrial technology at Fitchburg State University.

Rocheleau, 30, said he felt "most impassioned" when around the machines each afternoon.

"Observing them running, and pairing that learning to what I was seeing in the college classrooms made sense to me, and I began developing relationships with the machine assemblers who had 20 and often 30 years of experience in working with the machines," he said in his Rising Stars survey. "The relationships developed, observations made and learning from the classroom enabled me to break into machine maintenance where I was exposed to the basic principles of the equipment in a hands-on way."

Soon Rocheleau was assembling machines and gaining exposure into the industry. Now he is project engineer and assembly department supervisor at Rocheleau Blow Molding Systems, a maker of extrusion blow molding machines, of Fitchburg, Mass.

He was a graduate from the Community Leadership Institute of North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce in 2016 and named to the board of directors for the Society of Plastics Engineers' blow molding division in 2019. In September 2019, he will present at the SPE Annual Blow Molding Conference.

"My ideas and goals have brought me to my most recent major accomplishment of being voted in as a Society of Plastics Engineers blow molding division board member," he said, "and this has opened my mind to many new ventures and connections with other leaders in the industry.

"I've also brought this new awareness of never settling to my company, as I've recently, alongside my father, Jeffrey, wrapped up the design, creation and sale of Rocheleau's first-ever six-head gallon blow molding machine: the RS90, of which we are very proud," he added.

Nicholas Rocheleau said his current challenge — "and seemingly many companies in our industry" — is promoting the industry interest among younger generations.

"SPE's blow molding division recently held our board of directors meeting on the campus of Pennsylvania College of Technology, and the responsiveness in discussing this issue was incredible," he said. "Since we were on campus, there was fantastic turnout of students eager to share their perspectives. This allowed us to connect with the next generation of leaders and faculty members to openly discuss/collaborate on how we can promote interest in our industry."

Rocheleau added that he left the event with "exchanges of ideas" that will not only help a younger generation find opportunities as they transition from student to professional, but also assist companies gain eager, qualified individuals to grow their businesses.

Rocheleau, whose initial experiences with the company and team empowered him as he earned his degree and gave him the opportunities to travel to perform on-site services after full-time, post-graduate employment, said he eventually would like to be owner of Rocheleau Blow Molding Systems someday.

"I knew it was up to me to pave my own way within a growing and talented, established company," Rocheleau said.

"Every experience I had in my first plastics job informs the design decisions I make today, as well as informs the leadership roles I am entrusted with, as I manage some of the very people who showed me the ropes. It is a role that I have so much respect for because of everything these hardworking veterans have taught me over the years."