PlastChicks

Latest Episodes:

Season 6 Episode 6 - Dr. Ellen Lee, Ford Motor Company Apr 05, 2024

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Dr. Ellen Lee, Technical Leader of Additive Manufacturing Research at Ford Motor Company, live from ANTEC® 2024. They discuss her journey in additive manufacturing, challenges in using additive manufacturing in the automotive sector, developing technical roadmaps, collaboration with the value chain, advice for people interested in additive manufacturing careers, and additive manufacturing design, optimization, and printing processes.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 6 Episode 5 - Darien Dierksen, Procter & Gamble Mar 01, 2024

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Darien Dierksen, Senior Application Engineer at Procter & Gamble. They discuss her journey in the plastics industry, mentoring, challenges for women in the plastics industry, sustainable solutions at Procter & Gamble, the importance of recycling education and her road ahead in plastics.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 6 Episode 4 - Alethea Schaeffer, USHECO Feb 02, 2024

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Alethea Schaeffer, VP of Sales & Engineering, USHECO. They discuss her journey in the plastics industry, thermoforming processes, the company's entrepreneurial approach to manufacturing, designing for manufacturing, approaches to problem-solving in engineering, pivoting to support pandemic supply needs and how the company stays innovative.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 6 Episode 3 - Co-CEOs - Hoffer Plastics Jan 05, 2024

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host the co-CEOs of Hoffer Plastics: Gretchen Hoffer Farb, Charlotte Hoffer Canning and Alex Hoffer. They discuss the dynamics of a family-owned injection-molding plastics business, their approach to innovation in the plastics industry, the advantages of having multiple co-CEOs, the importance of family being part of company values, and working together with customers and staff at all levels to address the needs of the customer, end consumer, and those on the production floor.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 6 Episode 2 - Monika Stroeder, PhD - NOVA Chemicals Dec 01, 2023

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Monika Stroeder, PhD, Team Leader, Circular Products R&D at NOVA Chemicals. They review her role in developing new products, her move into technical services, packaging, sustainability and finally into research and development of circular products. They discuss working together with the industry in a value chain, downgauging, mono material packaging, incorporating recycled materials, mechanical and chemical recycling, the challenges for consumers in understanding recycling and reducing the carbon footprint. They delve into the development of new high-performance resin, the future of packaging for the food industry with changes in consumer shopping preferences, advanced recycling technologies, corporate diversity and NOVA Chemicals' 30-30-30 strategy.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 6 Episode 1 - Madison Kramer, PlastChicks Scholarship Winner Nov 03, 2023

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Madison Kramer, a Plastics Engineering sophomore at Penn State Behrend and the first PlastChicks Scholarship Winner.

They discuss her scholarship, her interest in plastics engineering, how Lynzie and Mercedes created the PlastChicks podcast, plastics mold design, the benefits of internships in addition to academic studies, and innovations in the plastics industry.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 5 Episode 10 - Sarah Webber, Plastic Ingenuity Oct 06, 2023

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Sarah Webber, Sustainable Packaging Engineer for Plastic Ingenuity. They discuss her sustainable plastics industry career journey, encouraging others to explore careers in plastics, the importance of involving packaging engineers early in the process when the design is frozen but not ready to launch to optimize the potential for sustainable packaging, addressing the challenges of recycling, finding end markets for recycled materials, young people entering the plastics industry in sustainability areas, using a data-driven approach to sustainable design and manufacturing, and the role of The International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) in developing sustainable processes that support verifiable claims of recycled content in a product.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 5 Episode 9 - Mitch Rife, Delta TechOps Sep 01, 2023

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Mitch Rife, Engineering Manager for Additive Manufacturing, Delta TechOps. They discuss transitioning from subtractive to additive manufacturing processes; designing for 3D printing while considering injection molding requirements should production needs increase; producing 3D-printed tools, tool carriers and protectors to support aircraft mechanics; choosing materials for aerospace prototyping; use of 3D-printed parts in aircraft manufacturing; and designing wheelchair-accessible airplane seats.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 5 Episode 8 - Kate Davenport, Eureka Recycling Aug 04, 2023

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Kate Davenport, Co-President of Eureka Recycling, a nonprofit zero waste organization and social enterprise recycler based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They discuss the economics and opportunities in providing recycling services, including finding sustainable markets that are interested in purchasing recycled materials, considering processes to move responsibility from the municipality to the producer, the difficulty of aggregating materials into one stream, competing with virgin plastics, the volatility of recycling materials pricing, and the challenges and costs of pulling plastic bags and flexible packaging out of the recycling stream.

Terminology Note: MRF (pronounced "murf") is a materials recovery facility, materials reclamation facility, materials recycling facility or multi re-use facility, which is a specialized plant that receives, separates and prepares recyclable materials for marketing to end-user manufacturers (Wikipedia).

Find out more about Eureka Recycling.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

Season 5 Episode 7 - Nathan Rader-Edkin, Plastics Innovation and Resource Center, Pennsylvania College of Technology Jul 07, 2023

Show notes

PlastChicks Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Nathan Rader-Edkin, Plastics Innovation and Resource Center Program Manager, Pennsylvania College of Technology, a Plastics News Rising Star for 2023, and a co-founder of a new plastics career site, PlasticsPostings.com.

They discuss his plastics industry career journey, parenting, injection molding, the importance of industry experience to an academic career, and the role of the Pennsylvania College of Technology's Plastics Innovation and Resource Center.

Find out more about the Pennsylvania College of Technology and the PlasticsPostings.com career site.

Watch the PlastChicks podcast on the SPE YouTube Channel.

PlastChicks is sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

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