Poly Wants a Plastic (An Interview with Jackie Goudelock)

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In this modern day and age, man-made plastics are emerging in more and more unexpected places. Plastic is one of the most versatile materials that can be manufactured. Plastics can be malleable, brittle, durable, heat resistant, spring-like, and they have many other useful qualities. One company that manufactures a wide variety of plastic films is Berry Plastics. It is impressive how much thought and communication with the clientele occurs in creating plastic films. The clients of Berry Plastics are often very involved in the feedback loop with the engineers working on the products. 

Plastics are in almost everything. There is not really an odd product in plastics because almost anything can be made of plastic or have plastic in it. Product lines are often commonplace and used in everyday life such as plastic bags, the film of a camera, diaper backsheet films, and Tupperware containers. 

The clients of Berry Plastics come with a product in mind or often even a product that they want redesigned. Various constraints, parameters, and regulations must be met depending on the product. As of late, many companies are looking to save face and save money by making their products greener and less wasteful.

A common practice comes when companies aim to down-gauge their plastic film products. This means that the company is trying to reduce the amount of plastic material in the product. This can be done by redesigning the packaging or the product itself to be need less plastic to function properly or hold its form. Another option is to use Post Consumer Recycle (PCR) plastics which allows the company to make environmental claims, perhaps for advertising purposes. Lastly, some request experiment runs to evaluate compostable and degradable materials as well as the new renewable source polymers; however, these types of materials are still very expensive and not generally used at this time, but there is an interest in them among the clients of Berry Plastics.

The design and production of polymers is the process that the films are made by at Berry Plastics. Chemical engineers are the general workforce behind the design and production of those polymers. One such engineer is the subject of my interview, Jacqueline Goudelock. 

Jackie and her husband Joel Goudelock

She works for Berry Plastics as a product development engineer. She attended University of Toledo for her degree in Chemical engineering which she uses to inform her in her work. She also went to The Ohio State University for further advancement in her studies. She comes from a family history of engineers and is married to an engineer. Both her father and grandfather were engineers who worked in plastics. Jackie, as she is colloquially called, says she was influenced by this early exposure to the "biz" in her final career choice.  When in college, she specialized specifically in polymer engineering.

In her work, she works in polymer extrusion and specifically cast and blown plastic films. Polymer extrusion is done to create a large amount of a consistent profile from raw plastic material. Her most common customers deal with personal care and the packaging business. The most common products she works on are diaper backsheet films and the packaging of those diapers. She works with the sales and production personal at her own company. Outside her company, she works with Original Equipment Manufacturers (the people who make the raw materials), Berry Plastics' customers, and occasionally the paper and non-woven industries. 

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She must meet certain regulations for products depending on their use. For example, personal care items generally must be FDA approved for skin contact. Another example is that film products that go into containers for food require FDA approved materials for food contact. Finally, the raw materials used in the films must meet the customer's safety needs.

The most rewarding thing and the most difficult thing in her work is translating a customer's need into a product characteristic. Solving that problem is the most interesting and dynamic part of her job. Customers always have new demands or issues that she and her company have to meet. Often a customer will have a processing issue or an end product improvement in mind and it is a large part of her job to figure out how and what she can build into a new product to resolve the issue or to enhance the product as requested. She does this by designing experiments on Berry Plastics' pilot equipment aiming to meet those requirements. The variety and challenge of the projects she works on keeps it interesting to her.

Mostly, she works from her home office, but she does travel domestically and to plants. She goes to Berry Plastics' plants to, "run trials on the films, host customers, or roll out new products." In her previous positions in her field she had traveled to Brazil, Argentina, and Peru for work but in her current job, she does not travel outside of the United States. "The plastic industry is big in Texas." Many of Berry Plastics' suppliers have manufacturing locations in the Houston area.

The achievement that most stands in her career was when she got her Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Six Sigma is a program that many companies employ and have workshops on for process improvement. For her project, she, "solved a printing issue that her company had struggled with for years."

The problem was a print stability problem with a registered print film. This means that a graphic was to be printed on the film for the final product. The issue was that the graphic was printed on a film around an area that is very weak and soft. Due to this weakness, the film is often wound and under tension which causes the film to creep under the constant stresses. Due to this problem, one roll would end and when the client switched to the next one and the lengths suddenly are longer and the equipment cannot adjust for it. A quick but wasteful solution was to cut off the top inch or two from each roll for the equipment to be able to run them. She designed the formulation to one with better creep properties and also optimized the wind profile on the printing press to solve the issue.

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The product in question was a diaper that a customer wanted to print an image on. It is amazing how something so seemingly simple can be incredibly complicated and troublesome. Something often taken for granted is just how many things in the world are really the manifestation of some person's idea that has gone through testing and development to become what it is today. Especially in a city, where there is hardly anything truly natural; everything is a design or an idea come to life. Even a park's trees were laid out according to some design or description.

There are still new things to be done, and all things can always be improved. There is no such thing as a perfect design and if there were, people would find some way to break it. In the polymer industry, new ideas are emerging that are useful. "The development in the past few years of elastomeric materials can be used in films." Elastomerics are polymers that behave like rubber; they are malleable and can be deformed easily. These new ways and ideas are emerging everywhere and the world needs people to make them useful. Discoveries are only as useful as the applications they provide. Problems are always waiting to be solved and the world will never be short on them. Engineers are problem solvers at heart. Jacqueline Goudelock is a true problem solver. Someday, I hope to be one as well.

Nikola Tesla, Brilliant and Bizarre

They say that there is a thin line between brilliance and madness, and such was definitely the case for Nikola Tesla. Even his most famous discovery, that of alternating current, was a scientific idea that was looked down upon as impossible and as 'just speculation', such as cold fusion is today (which is basically nuclear fusion at room temperature). Merely attempting to solve that problem was in itself very insane, or at least so thought everyone but Tesla. Most people these days know that he was brilliant and eccentric. Even those who know he was an odd one probably do not know truly how bizarre and interesting a character he was.

Nikola Tesla had many quirks. He had a fear of germs. Every photo taken of him had to be taken in a precise manner as to show off his good side. He also hated round objects. When women wore pearls, he would refuse to speak to them, and if his secretary dared to do so, then he would send her straight home (PBS). Despite the day off of work, it must have been quite confusing for her. In addition, Tesla also felt romantic love for some pigeons, loved the dark, was obsessed with the number three, and he suffered from vivid hallucinations of both auditory and visual. No woman is said to have ever been with him. A famous asexual and celibate, Tesla once said, "I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men" (Strange Brains and Geniuses). Tesla never gave women the chance to look past his faults, as he was too busy being Tesla.

All those quirks, fears, and mental problems did not stop him from being an amazing inventor. He would not be stopped by them. He was still a brilliant scientist, and as far as scientists go, one expects them to be methodical: slowly but surely advancing towards their goal. This, as you may have guessed, was not the case with Tesla. Large amounts of his work were conducted all in his head. He could imagine in three dimensions and simulate experiments in his head rather than conducting them in the lab (PBS). Because of this, Tesla had few prototypes, and few notes describing his inventions. Many were just up in his crazy, brilliant mind. Many of his inventions died with him because of this. Some of those inventions lost were more interesting than others.

Death Beam

Just before his death, he completed his, as the press called it, “death beam” which was said to be effective at 200 miles and able to vaporize steel. Naturally, the government confiscated his papers after his death, it was World War 2 at the time, and then investigated them. However, nothing turned up about death rays or anything else that was new to them, so the papers were returned to his family and the Tesla Museum. There was likely no death ray after all; Tesla was known to say things to pique people's interests that were not entirely true (FBI). Tesla seemed to be fond of messing with people for his own entertainment.

The Earthquake Incident

On that subject, the infamous incident where Tesla caused an earthquake in New York City is mostly unfounded. Tesla had no such violent machine which could cause an earthquake from his lab in Manhattan, but worry not, as he did almost make Mark Twain muddy his trousers. Tesla and he had met through a gentleman's club and Mark Twain was known for having digestive problems. Likely knowing this, Tesla called Twain to help him out with an experiment of his by standing on a particular platform. The platform was on an oscillator which did shake and quake, but not the streets of New York. It did those things to Twain's bowels. Twain, not even lasting two minutes, ran off to the bathroom in response to the sudden movements (PBS).

The Current War

Tesla and Edison, as many know, were rivals of electricity. Tesla believed that alternating current was superior to Edison's direct current. Direct current had limitations but Edison was in too deep to stop pushing now, or so it seemed was his mentality. Edison was a bit of a loon about proving that alternating current was dangerous; he even electrocuted stray animals like dogs and cats (Damn Interesting). He spread propaganda about his rival's current and did so with little restraint. Not exactly a gentleman's duel. It was even said that both men did not earn any Nobel Prizes because of their petty rivalry. Neither man wanted to get one should the other man be honored first (10 Scientists Robbed of a Nobel Prize)

Edison and Tesla had a history before this as well. When Tesla came to America from Serbia with only four cents and a letter of recommendation, he was hired by Edison. Tesla was told that if he improved on Edison's machines, then he would be rewarded with $50,000. Edison never paid him even though the improvements were made, saying that he had been joking (Nikola Tesla). $50,000 was an enormous amount back then, so Edison was not just giving Tesla the short end of the stick. Despite their history and rivalry, the two were not at each others' throats. In fact, they respected one another as scientists, as evidenced by Tesla getting a crowd to applaud for Edison upon noticing him in the audience and Edison giving Tesla temporary use of one of his labs when Tesla's was not usable (PBS).

In the end of The Current War, alternating current won out and direct current drifted back from the spotlight. To this day, we use the alternating current that Tesla pushed with his business partner. Without it we would not be able to have electricity so widely distributed across our country and even the world. Tesla's largest impact was one that reaches nearly every corner of the globe. A truly impressive feat, regardless of his quirks and oddities.

Conclusion

Nikola Tesla had more than his fair share of problems in his life. His life was wrought with mental abnormalities and strange behavior. Despite all of this Tesla went on to be one of the most remembered and celebrated inventors of his time, even all time. His life story proves that one does not need to work all the time to be successful, there is room for play. He also shows that an oddity, or perhaps a dozen, does not need to prevent one from accomplishing one's goals. Tesla proves that there is a thin line between brilliance and madness, but that it can be walked and it can produce results.