Meet Rodrigo Orozco

Hi, I am a graduate student since Fall 2005 working on my PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This is my fourth and last year, I hope!!! My research is related to viscoelastic stress analysis of polymer and polymer composite structures using a meshless technique and FEA.

I am Colombian, received my BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia in 2001 and 2002, respectively. After finishing my MS degree I thought that I would never write a thesis ever again, but a couple of years later I changed my mind.

After my MS I worked for a company that produces strike anywhere matches, this company belongs to a Spanish holding that was increasing their businesses in Colombia. Due to the company’s growth I had the chance to get promoted really quickly, but that required a lot of work and extra time, including nights and weekends. This work taught me a lot of things, mainly non-engineering related, which I really appreciate.

One day in late Spring 2005 one friend helped me to get in contact with a Professor from UW-Madison, he needed a graduate student to work in a project in the area of refrigeration. My course work is mainly focused in energy conversion, with some continuum mechanics. In less than two months I quit my job, applied to graduate school, took the GRE and TOEFL, and packed my life in two suitcases, leaving my family to start my PhD.

Now, almost four years since I started graduate school, I don’t regret my decision, anyway it was not easy. My English was good enough to pass the requirement from the school, but needed improvement. I was rusty, I was no longer in the mode of school, homework, exams, projects, etc.

During my second year in graduate school I realized that refrigeration was not my passion, and then I had the chance to change the topic of my research and started working with Prof. Osswald at the Polymer Engineering Center. Initially polymers were completely new, but according to my advisor, I would learn about plastics in a couple of months. I took classes in polymers and still continue learning. Since then I am a SPE student member and truly enjoy working on my research and learning about polymers.

Meet Lynzie Collard

My name is Lynzie Collard and I’m a 23 year old Plastics Engineering Technology graduate from Penn State Behrend. I graduated in December ’08 and started my job as Project Manager for Pittsburgh Plastics (located in Butler, PA) in January.

Pittsburgh Plastics is a relatively small company with an Engineering department consisting of five people. As a project manager, I am responsible for taking sales requests from our Sales department and taking a product into final production. The steps in between vary greatly depending on the product and customer. Sometimes I am required to do a lot of R&D and prototyping to create a whole new product and other times I may only have one or two revisions to an existing product. Essentially I am responsible for the project from being to end.

Meet John Kraynik

Hi everyone. My name is John Kraynik from Penn State Behrend in Erie, Pennsylvania. I’m scheduled to graduate in May 2009 with a Bachelors of Science in Plastics Engineering Technology and a Minor in Operations and Supply Chain Management. My career at Behrend helped me develop a combination of engineering, business, and interpersonal skills, giving me a solid foundation to build my future with. Graduate School has always been an option, but I’m eager to start my career and contribute to the plastics industry.

I work part time at Beaumont Technologies, Inc as a Technical Sales Engineer, and am actively seeking a full time entry level engineering position in the industry. My career interests include (but certainly not limited to) product development, project management, operations, design, quality control, or some combination of these functions. I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s posts, and hopefully my posts can provide some help as well.

Welcome to SPE YoPro!

Welcome to SPE's new blog that is dedicated to students and young professionals in the plastics engineering field.

SPE YoPro is written by and for SPE's student members and young professionals. It will consist of blog entries written by students and those who entered the plastics work force recently. Content will include class information, what it's like to search for a job when you're about to graduate, the job market, what their first job is like, etc.

Over the coming weeks, please look out for introductory entries written by our bloggers as we get to know them better!