SPECSheet
Society of Plastics Engineers / Cleveland Section
VOL 65 NO 4
Society of Plastics Engineers / Cleveland Section
VOL 65 NO 4
Next meeting, January 13
The December program has been cancelled. The next program will be January 13 – Technical Recruiting Roundtable / ACESS to be held at the Akron / Fairlawn Hilton, details to be provided.
Details to come.
Cleveland SPE Members,
I would like to thank all our members for their support, for our very successful season starting in September. So far, we have held a special seminar at Case Western Reserve University at which our membership chair, Mr. Todd Waddle, gave an excellent talk, which was greatly appreciated by the students. We then had a successful tour at Tymex Plastics’ facility in October and a tour of the new Varago Plastics Distribution Center in Nov.
Last but not the least, we have many exciting events planned for the new year. In fact, the Cleveland Chapter will host a tour at Polymag Plant in February. More details can be found in our website. Looking forward to seeing you all.
Also in the new year, we will be looking for candidates for several board positions, please us know how you would like be involved.
With Thanksgiving around the corner and the holidays not too far away, I would like to wish everyone a great holiday. Please share our wishes with families and friends.
Thank you!
Guojun Zhang
President
SPE Cleveland
1st Place Winner: Stephen Sun, Hawken Upper School in Gates Mills, OH.
“Polymer Based Modification on Peristaltic Locomotion of a Modular Mesh-based Robot”.
2nd Place Winner: Carly Justice, Firestone High School in Akron, OH.
“Recycling Plastics in Lightweight Concrete: Reducing Global Waste”.
3rd Place Winner: Charles Pafford, Incarnate Word Academy in Parma Heights, OH.
“Materials and Design Optimization for Fused Deposition Modeling Application of Vehicle Suspension Parts.”
2019/2020 SPE Scholarship Winner – Teegan Smith
Shawnee State College in Portsmouth Ohio, Associates Degree in Plastics Engineering and Computer Aided Design.
The Cleveland Section sponsored a PlastiVan event at Lake Ridge Academy in North Ridgeville on Monday November 25. PlastiVan events provide a hands-on science experience to students at any grade level and is taught by an experienced science educator. For this event, 10 middle schoolers participated in several experiments and demonstrations. Board members Dennis Meade and Ron Raleigh also attended to provide section support and to interact with the students. Our section’s goal is to host one event per year, plus additional sessions with corporate support.
Dennis Meade – Cleveland Section Councilor
SPE Council Committee of the Whole met on November 14 and 15 at the new SPE Headquarters in Danbury, CT. The facility is larger and more modern than the previous location as well as has the ability to host small to medium size conferences. The building includes large meeting rooms, A/V services and a cafeteria that can be used for any catering associated with prospective conferences. HQ was able to negotiate the new lease with a 10-month rent deferral to offset the cost of moving and new furnishings.
We reviewed the SPE Financials which reported that International projects will have a 2019 operating budget shortfall of $492,832. This shortfall will be offset by $523,888 in projected investment income.
HQ is also projecting a $492,990 operating budget shortfall for 2020. Projecting expenses to remain roughly the same as 2019 and again with projected investment income making up the shortfall.
Protecting Life – This includes products that protect life from harm by prevention such as tamper evident packaging, traffic safety, automotive safety, containment such as landfill liners, and safety in general.
Quality of Life – This includes products that give that raise the quality of life by making work easier, fun, convenient such as Automotive, Aeronautical, Marine, and Recreational, Building, and Transportation applications.
Improving Life – This includes products that improve the life of people directly by medical, food preservation, hospice or pharmaceutical means.
Sustaining Life – Products that make the most of our global resources and help reduce, recycle, reuse or reclaim. This would include applications that involve sustainability, recycling, reduction, bioplastics, resource conservation, and weight reduction.
Revenue is generated by the entry fees charged. Advantage to participants is International recognition in SPE Journal and other local and national and International publications.
Revenue will go to the local section or division. No splits with the HQ unless we use their conference services.
I hope members will go to the SPE Website, www.4spe.org for more information on these programs.
Two years ago, the Executive Council assigned a task force to look at ways to streamline the governance of the Society by allowing the Executive Committee the Authority to run the day-to-day operations of the Society. The proposal will reduce the need for the Council of the Whole (80 plus members) to approve much of the operating related functions while still maintaining the function of oversight and the ability to reverse decisions made by the Executive Committee. Two proposals were discussed with no approval from Council. A compromise agreement was agreed upon and the Governance Task Force will prepare language and by-law amendments to conform. This compromise proposal will be voted on at the ANTEC meeting in March 2020.
October, 2019 Program
Tour of Entec Ravago Americas new polymer distribution, recycling and compounding building in Medina, Ohio. The 500,000 square foot building includes a large warehouse, plant and office space. The new sixteen by sixty feet high silos provide storage for the plastic pellets that will be shipped around the world to meet their client’s demands.
Ravago Manufacturing produces a wide range of plastic and rubber materials from high performance engineered resins to recycled post-consumer materials. The facility will include pulverizing equipment to make rotational molding grades of plastic resin. The state of the art facility also includes extensive material testing capabilities along with 17-20 silos, railway sidings, and boxing and bagging equipment.
Attendees: T. Waddle, C. Potter, R. Raleigh, J. Sovis, D. Meade, G. Zhang, D. Crist, Z. Li (guest from CASE) and R. Opalko.
Missing members: J. Blayne
Officer Reports:
Treasurer – J. Sovis summarized are status as improved, due largely to the CAD RETEC reimbursement.
Counselor – D. Meade talked to S. Montgomery concerning the venue for the fall Injection Molding Div. conference in CLE, and the IM Div. did not like the pricing. National SPE recommended Danbury, CT location for this event, but D. Meade discouraged this. Members wondered if CASE can host this at either the University itself or at the Technology Center. The anticipated attendance is 150-200. D. Meade stressed to the members the need to find a venue before this conference slips away. G. Zhang to contact CASE.
Membership: Membership stands at 189, up from 157 on July 2017. T. Waddle did some analysis in order to more efficiently focus our recruiting efforts. Student membership is up, probably due to our recent events.
Members agreed that we should have profiles of our longest time members Dr. Eric Baer and Nick Hotujac, in our upcoming newsletters.
Committee Chairs:
House – D. Crist reported that we had approx. 40 attendees for the Ravago tour, organized by the Akron section. Both the CLE and Akron section propose a Christmas party on 12-10-19 at the Brew Kettle in Strongsville, OH. Time TBD.
Communications – C. Potter reported that the newsletter has a 25% open rate. C. Potter will update the calendar of events for Dec. and Jan., as well as the website analytics.
Education – R. Raleigh noted that we should keep the CASE events going, so we need to schedule an industry speaker for March / April 2020.
The Plastivan is scheduled for 11-25-19 at Lake Ridge Academy, Board members are invited, with a 7:30AM start. D. Meade and R. Raleigh will attend.
Technical Programs: no report.
New Business: no report.
As part of SPE Cleveland’s membership in CTSC (ctsc.org), you’re invited to subscribe to the CTSC’s TechWeek email listing of area events staged by the various technical and engineering groups in Northeast Ohio. Each TechWeek will feature a comprehensive listing of the speakers, tours, panel discussions and other programs which are either sponsored or co-sponsored by a CTSC member society. Each listing also includes live links to register or to get more information
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