Sean Stabler: Problem Solving in Polymer Engineering

00:00:00 Sumer Beatty: Welcome to Tomorrow Makers, where we explore how we learn, live, work, and play now and in the future. I'm Sumer Beatty. 00:00:11 Carlos Ramos: And I'm Carlos Ramos. Hello, Sumer. 00:00:14 Sumer Beatty: Hello! 00:00:15 Carlos Ramos: What do we got today? 00:00:16 Sumer Beatty: Oh my goodness, we have Sean Stabler with us. 00:00:18 Carlos Ramos: Sean Stabler. 00:00:19 Sumer Beatty: Yes. 00:00:19 Carlos Ramos: SEKISUI KYDEX. 00:00:21 Sumer Beatty: Yes. And if you're a member of the Penn College community, you're like, You're perking up, you, you hear, or you see Sean's name and you're like, oh, we love Sean. 00:00:29 Carlos Ramos: We do. I love his title too. 00:00:31 Sumer Beatty: Yes. 00:00:31 Carlos Ramos: VP of innovation. 00:00:33 Sumer Beatty: Yeah. 00:00:34 Carlos Ramos: That's so cool. 00:00:35 Sumer Beatty: Right. He doesn't like to talk about it. 00:00:36 Carlos Ramos: He doesn't like it. 00:00:36 Sumer Beatty: He's like, I'm not a title person. I'm an engineer. I'm a problem solver. That's his identity. 00:00:42 Carlos Ramos: And he does that. 00:00:43 Sumer Beatty: He totally does. 00:00:45 Carlos Ramos: So, SEKISUI KYDEX, it's a polymer engineering company, custom boutique-y type thing. Now, some of you might've heard polymers and you're like, oh, I'm not going to listen to polymers. But yes, you are, because guess what? Polymers are everywhere. Plastics are everywhere. And I think we have to open our minds to what is possible with it. And Sean has, I mean, he talks about all the solutions that they're doing, but he also talks about sustainability efforts, which are really cool. I mean, it's, it's, it's fascinating to hear how industry can be part of solving the problems that they see. They're not sweeping things under the rug. They're actually sweeping it all up and recycling and all that. 00:01:21 Sumer Beatty: Selling the garbage. It is amazing. I don't think as a consumer, we realize what's going on behind the scenes. And SEKISUI KYDEX, for all accounts, I've visited their facilities a couple different times, and they're truly walking the walk. And I don't know how much they're shouting it from the rooftops, but it's like things no one knows they're doing. They're leading the industry. They're having these work groups. They're trying to figure out how they can be responsible, you know, and just forward thinking. And he also shared along that same vein, Sean often comes back and talks to freshmen here at Penn College, which is, you know, really cool. It's just part of who he is. He likes to give back. But he also shares the sustainability focus that our students have and the evolution of that. You know, he's like, I came here and I didn't even know, you know, this from that. And now these students just have this clear objective to make a difference. 00:02:19 Carlos Ramos: And there's a reason why they're leading that charge. I mean, think about it. 15 of our grads are there. 00:02:25 Sumer Beatty: Oh my goodness. And he wants more. 00:02:26 Carlos Ramos: He wants more. Yes. And we, the problem is we have this pipeline issue with getting students into the program. This is not an us problem. I think we talk about this in the episode. It's a higher ed wide polymers and plastics having trouble getting students to really think, hey, that's the industry for me. That's where I want to go. And here comes Sean. He's kind of typical for around here, the rural areas, grew up on the farm, wanted to, he thought he was, he was, he was problem solving. So, what, what was he? He was... 00:02:56 Sumer Beatty: He was, initially went to study mechanical engineering 00:02:59 Carlos Ramos: And it wasn't quite clicking. 00:03:01 Sumer Beatty: No, and that's something many of our high school students, I think they know what a mechanical engineer is. That's like one of those things, like teachers and lawyers, they know an engineer. So, of course he was like, yeah, I'm going to go to this college for this. I think it was in Philadelphia. And so he also, he'll talk about this. It's like, I was a farm kid, so I felt a little out of it in Philadelphia. So there was that piece of it, but there's always that, that idea that those, some of those engineering programs are missing that hands on aspect. So thankfully he found his way to us. 00:03:32 Carlos Ramos: Yeah. And found his way to Kirk Cantor, which. I mean, the faculty here, they are so powerful and I hate to say this is going to be Kirk's last semester. I hope he stays on as part time or does something with us still because he's amazing. Go back and listen to season one episode, I forget which number... 00:03:52 Sumer Beatty: We'll link it in the show notes. 00:03:52 Carlos Ramos: We definitely will. 00:03:53 Sumer Beatty: His name and his podcast comes up time and time again. So I think it will continue to be a fan favorite. 00:03:59 Carlos Ramos: Yeah. So if whatever role you play in life, whether you're in industry, if you're one of our secondary educators, let's listening to our program, if you're connected to the College, talk to your kids about what the potential is in this program. Because one, there's funding available for it. We've got a Polymer Promise Scholarship, which we have company matching, which SEKISUI KYDEX participates in amongst other partners. So it's there. All right. That's our pitch. Ready to dive in? 00:04:31 Sumer Beatty: Absolutely. Let's do it. 00:04:32 Carlos Ramos: All right. 00:04:40 Sumer Beatty: All right. So we're here with Sean Stabler. He is the vice president of operations and innovation at SEKISUI KYDEX. 00:04:48 Sean Stabler: That's right. 00:04:49 Sumer Beatty: Thanks for being with us today. 00:04:51 Sean Stabler: Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. 00:04:52 Sumer Beatty: Absolutely. So you graduated from Penn College 20 years ago. Can you believe that? 00:04:58 Sean Stabler: I know. Makes me feel old. 00:04:59 Sumer Beatty: Oh my goodness. with a bachelor's degree in plastics and polymer engineering. 00:05:04 Sean Stabler: That's correct. 00:05:05 Sumer Beatty: And, we said what you're up to today at SEKISUI KYDEX. and so we'd love to have you walk through the different pivotal moments in your career. But first, I want to rewind back a while. Let's set the stage. We're at your grandparents house, and you're just getting that spark or that interest in engineering. Can you walk us through kind of what got you interested in engineering and working with your hands? 00:05:28 Sean Stabler: Yeah, absolutely. it actually goes back even before my grandparents. My mom doesn't like this story. Actually, she likes to tell it. She didn't like it at the time. So, I wanted a squirt gun. I didn't have a squirt gun. And I think that's the first time I really fell in love with troubleshooting because I'm trying to figure out how do I get a squirt gun. I was probably four years old or so, roughly. Well I ended up going in the pantry and getting out a, squirt bottle of ketchup. Brand new one. And I turned that into a squirt gun. So what I did is I took it back to the bathroom, opened the top up, and I just squeezed every ounce of ketchup out as I could into the, into the bathroom, into the tub. And I made my first squirt gun. The problem is I didn't do a good job of cleaning up. So my mom got to see the mess I left behind. But I fixed the problem I had at hand. 00:06:15 Sumer Beatty: I like that you did it in the bathtub. I mean, that was good thinking. You didn't do it like on the couch, or on the living room carpet. 00:06:23 Sean Stabler: That's true. I may not be here if I had done that. 00:06:26 Carlos Ramos: So I'm trying to imagine the ketchup bottle of 20 years ago because these new ones you can't get, like, you're still left with like a quarter of the ketchup in the bottle and it's still kind of like stuck around that whole little film piece. What did it look like then? I don't remember. I'm sure it wasn't clean though. 00:06:43 Sean Stabler: I'm sure I got every ounce out. 00:06:45 Carlos Ramos: Actually, it would have been 40 years ago. Yeah, it would have been a while ago. 00:06:49 Sean Stabler: Yeah, it was probably like post glass. 00:06:51 Carlos Ramos: Yeah. 00:06:51 Sean Stabler: On the first plastic ketchup bottle. Maybe I was destined for polymers then. 00:06:55 Sumer Beatty: Yes. 00:06:55 Carlos Ramos: So that was back before the ketchup bottles actually sat on the lid. 00:06:59 Sumer Beatty: That's right. Yes. 00:07:00 Sean Stabler: I had to flip it. Maybe I did the, the old, spin-a-roo. 00:07:04 Carlos Ramos: There were whole commercials around ketchup at that point that, the way to get catch up out because you, everyone would smack the bottles and do all sorts of crazy things. 00:07:13 Sean Stabler: That's right. Windmill always works though. 00:07:15 Carlos Ramos: All right. 00:07:17 Sumer Beatty: Good to know. So then, that wasn't your, I think when we were talking about before, fast forward in your teens, maybe that's what I was thinking. You mentioned you had some really great moments with your, your grandpa. 00:07:29 Sean Stabler: Yeah, absolutely. I got off track a little bit. 00:07:30 Sumer Beatty: That's okay. 00:07:32 Sean Stabler: Yeah. So I grew up on a family farm and, you know, when I was younger, you know, my grandparents had four boys. So they're always hard on equipment. So I had something to live up to. So when I started working on the farm, I used to really work the equipment really hard, you know, just go as fast as I could get things done, and I got really good at breaking stuff, like really good. I mean, the equipment was like 60 years old, so maybe my dad started it, but I broke a lot of equipment, and what my grandfather would do is we would sit down at the kitchen table, he'd get his little tablet out, his pencils, and he would draw what I broke and how we're going to fix it. So I got to learn how to do like drafting design at a young age, early teens. And then we'd go out to the barn. We had like a little machine shop there, and we'd start putting everything back together. So everything I broke, we're able to fix in the end, but that's probably my first step in the engineering type realm. 00:08:23 Carlos Ramos: What a blessing to have that. I'm like, why did I have a grandfather like that? 00:08:27 Sumer Beatty: Yeah, that's great. That's great. And so then that sort of propelled you into thinking, maybe I want to go into engineering when you, it was time to enter college. How did that all work? 00:08:39 Sean Stabler: Yeah. So, the blueprint was really important to me with my grandfather. I kind of like that artistic piece, although I'm definitely not an artist, right? And what happened was in high school, they had like a vo tech program for drafting design. And so I went into drafting design in high school and started doing blueprints actually before CAD. It was really with the pencil. And then we graduated into the automated CAD. And when I was a senior, I got to leave school early, which I really liked. And I worked down at Young Industries in Muncy, which subsequently is also where my grandfather worked. Part time through the years he was also farming, so I got to meet like a lot of his old co workers and camaraderies that worked on building stuff. So that's really what got me towards engineering. As I got closer to graduating high school, I chose mechanical engineering because I was working with metals. I was breaking stuff still and learn how to fix it. So it made sense at the moment. 00:09:32 Carlos Ramos: Did you go to Muncy then? 00:09:33 Sean Stabler: I went to Hughesville. So our other farm that I broke stuff at as well, that was also in Muncy. I have a long history of breaking stuff. 00:09:43 Sumer Beatty: There's a theme here. Well, so far our podcast equipment has been unscathed. 00:09:48 Sean Stabler: Yeah, I won't touch anything. 00:09:50 Sumer Beatty: So you went to a college for mechanical engineering and then that wasn't quite the right fit. And then you stumbled upon Penn College or maybe you just knew of Penn College because of growing up in the area. 00:10:01 Sean Stabler: Yeah. So my mom went to Penn College. It was WACC then. but I'll be honest, like I was local. I'm like, I don't want to go to school nearby. So I, I moved to Philadelphia area. I went to Widener University, mechanical engineering. And it wasn't a good fit for me. You know, I'm a, I'm a farm boy moving to the city. That was strike one. You know, it was just, probably wasn't mature enough yet to kind of figure things out. So I actually called my professor back in high school, Mr. Stalnecker saying, Hey, mechanical engineering is not a good fit for me. And he's the one who recommended the polymers course at Penn College. Came up here, did a tour with Dr. Cantor, who who's retiring this year. It's, it's crazy. He's such an influence in the program. But I did a tour with Dr. Cantor and I was hooked. I didn't even know plastics was a career, just like just about everyone I talk to. 00:10:45 Sumer Beatty: And then were there any defining moments after you became a student here? What, what sticks out to you? 00:10:49 Sean Stabler: Yeah, you know, I'm a farm boy, so I wasn't blessed with tons of money, you know, so I'm trying to figure out how do I pay for college? And I had a couple semesters where I was getting loans. They're running on delays. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to take one of the semester's courses. I thought I was going to take some time off. And I don't remember which professor I spoke to. I was working with at the time, but they mentioned West Pharmaceutical Services. They're here in Williamsport. They mentioned they have a good program for plastics. They'll have tuition reimbursement programs, and I should check it out. And that's what I did. I applied at West Pharmaceutical. I got a job there. They started paying for school. But it was always important to me because that was a moment where I realized that I'm not just a student here. And that really stood out to me with, with all the professors, not singling anyone out. But they're looking at me as like a future professional because I was still a kid, right? I was still kind of going out of this, this phase from high school to college. And, you know, they had faith in me. So that really stood out a lot to me. And to be honest, that's I really got my whole career going. I was working nights. I was applying things I was learning during the day. I wasn't always academically the book smart kid, but I could learn once I started getting my hands moving in the right directions. And so it was really the best of the combination of education for me. Plus it helped me pay for school. It was a big deal. 00:12:08 Sumer Beatty: Wow, I don't know how you did that. That's not like you went to school all day and then you went and you worked in the evening. 00:12:13 Sean Stabler: Yeah. So my eight o'clock classes, I remember every semester I'd go right to the teacher. I'm like, look, I just got off work. I'm going to smell like oil and grease and I'm probably going to fall asleep. And, and all of them were great. I had one teacher I don't remember who was, they'd throw the eraser back when they used to use chalkboards, you know, back in the day. They would just toss it to me and wake back up and I'd, I'd go. But the school was really, it's, it's different in a sense that they educate adults, young professionals, as well as students. I kind of categorize them a little bit different, but the school is really focused on a lot of different generations of students, so they're quite accommodating. 00:12:49 Sumer Beatty: I'm sure you contributed to the class in a unique way, too, having that experience. 00:12:54 Sean Stabler: Well, I talked a few of my teammates into, or classmates to join at West too. So there's a bunch of us going through the same phase. And it's a good like support system because it's hard to stay awake. 00:13:05 Sumer Beatty: And the instructors are probably like, oh gee, this is so great. 00:13:09 Sean Stabler: They started it. We just, we just listened. 00:13:13 Sumer Beatty: And then since your time at Penn College, you had since earned a master's degree in material science and engineering, and then you've really grown to become a leader in your field. We mentioned your title, you're vice president. I know you said you hate, you're not a title person, but it's still, it's important to mention because being a vice president of innovation, the word innovation is, it can be somewhat obscure to people. So can you tell us what your day today looks like and what that involves? 00:13:38 Sean Stabler: Yeah, it's innovation. Most people think it's making new fancy exciting products, and it is, but I really look at defining innovation almost by a department level. So at SEKISUI KYDEX, where I work today, we innovate a lot differently in terms of not so much the new products, but it's about value add, which is services or different technologies we add into it. So it's beyond just making a product. Each department has some type of way to innovate, whether it's looking at new equipment to bring in that's, that's cutting edge, looking at new chemistries, new raw materials, or just different way of serving the customer. You know, and the customer is different. Like each department has their own customer. We also have customers we sell to, and we have some customers we sell indirectly to. So it's trying to find the best way to differentiate from competition. And there's a lot of different tactics that we can use to get there. 00:14:31 Sumer Beatty: OK, so I also realize, like, we know you and we know what, who's SEKISUI KYDEX is, but can you give our listeners, in case if you're out there and you don't know who SEKISUI is, do you mind just giving us a little intro of what you're doing? 00:14:43 Sean Stabler: Certainly. SEKISUI KYDEX, we're, we're a polymer manufacturer. We make plastic sheet. What we do, it's so exciting is we make our polymer sheets. Polymers perform in ways it shouldn't. Like it's not even textbook most of the time, which is mind blowing. It's, it's really great. But we, we formulate all of our polymers from scratch. So we're buying all the raw materials, convert that into plastic sheeting, which goes into a lot of thermal formed applications. Aviation is our biggest and what we're most known for. We're also into medical mass transit rail, but if you Google Kydex, you're going to find a lot of holsters. So it's not a big part of our business, but from brand equity, it's extremely important to who we are. Ultimately what we do best, it's about customization. You know, we're not a high volume, super high yield type business. We're really about customization. So we have tens of thousands of different colors of polymers, which is mind blowing. We make custom lengths, widths, thicknesses to whatever our customers demand. So we have like hundreds of different SKUs simply on pallets to put the sheet on. So it truly is custom, which fits best with thermoforming because that's kind of that type of business as well. 00:15:54 Sumer Beatty: Okay, so in an aircraft we're talking seats, we're talking the sides, the tray tables, anything that we see that's plastic could be made with one of your sheets. 00:16:05 Sean Stabler: Yeah, interior seating is, is really where we focus. What we do is, it's unique in the sense that we have this really technical grade of polymer, the Kynex grades. But we also add in this like intertwined this artistic piece. So we have designers on house, which helps us with the color appearance, gloss, different textures. And we work with the OEMs to really form this, to make the user experience, which in that aspect is the folks on the flight, have something very unique, which ties well with the brands of the airline that they're flying with. 00:16:37 Sumer Beatty: Yeah, so I got to go into, is it called a design lab? Is that what it is? Okay. So you walk up these steps and there's this glass room with this really nice seating. And so there's these different experiences, I would say. So like, textures and colors and they have it all organized. And I'm not sure the application specifically, but it's almost like instantly I was drawn to, oh, I like this. It was probably something related to nature. So a lot of your customers were probably like, I don't really know what I want exactly, but I'll know when I see it. So it's, it is cool because you've got the manufacturing floor on one level and then you go up and it's, it's very artistic. So even in your space, you can kind of see those two worlds collide. 00:17:23 Sean Stabler: That's right. because we have such a design focus, we have design lab, which is doing exactly what, what you came in there and experienced, right? We work with designers from around the world and they may want, a hue of blue, right? That that's. for whatever design they have, but it's really hard to quantify it. Now we can measure color. It's mathematically, we can measure it, but once they see it in certain lighting or with certain textures, they may want something softer. And I'm an engineer. And so when a designer says, I want it softer, I have no idea what that means. Right? So that's where we work with them in the design lab. Like we start changing the pigments sets for the color and we can do it immediately. Within a couple of minutes, we can break, make a brand new color. And then, we may have four, five, six samples with designers saying, is this heading in the right direction, that, that you want. But we also have, color specialists that, that work on this. So when they're looking at the color, they're looking at say, well, you need more blue, more yellow, more green. And I don't see it. I don't have like the greatest color acuity, I guess. But they see it because they do this every day and they're working really close with designers to meet the need of what they want it to look like. And then we move over to the service center, which is the technical side where I spend most of my time. That's where engineers are. So we have a lot of Penn College students working. They now know what it looks like and now they can produce or create or choose the right type polymer to meet the needs on the technical side. 00:18:55 Sumer Beatty: And you have quite a few Penn College graduates there. 00:18:57 Sean Stabler: We do. I think we have about 15. 00:19:00 Sumer Beatty: Okay. 00:19:01 Sean Stabler: I'd hire them all if I could. 00:19:03 Sumer Beatty: Do you hear that, guys and girls? 00:19:05 Carlos Ramos: Come visit us. 00:19:06 Sumer Beatty: Yes. 00:19:08 Carlos Ramos: So when you're designing these sheets, is it a single sheet or you do your multi layer? What's, what's going on there? I would assume there's probably cross layers happening too for strength. 00:19:18 Sean Stabler: Yeah. Yeah. It really depends on the need. The bulk of our product is a monolayer sheet. So it's just one neat material throughout the whole cross section. But that's when we start adding the value. So there are some caps we can put on there, different films with designs on it, different traits, if you will, that the customer may need. We also have a proprietary technology. It's patented called infused imaging. So essentially we can like tattoo just about any design you want into the sheet. And that's where like our graphic artists, some from Penn College, will work with our designers to figure out like, what's it need to look like? What's the substrate have to look like in terms of color, because if tattoo, you know, things can kind of bleed through. And we'll work through that with the designers back and forth. Being that we're a global company, it can be challenging if they're on the other side of the world. That's why we try to get them to come to Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania and work with us hand in hand. It just saves so much time. 00:20:11 Sumer Beatty: So in your position, you do have the opportunity to do a little bit of traveling. You mentioned you have some clients that you want them to come to Bloomsburg, PA, but maybe everybody doesn't want to come to Bloomsburg, PA, or they can't. Or maybe are you traveling for, conferences or... 00:20:27 Sean Stabler: Yeah, I do travel, not as much as I used to at my old job, the last company, but we have a, very large trade show coming up in April. It's like, we spend an entire year preparing for it. That's called Aviation Interiors Expo. It's in Hamburg. So a group of us will go out there and travel to Hamburg, meet some customers either at the booth or we'll travel inside Europe to meet with the clients. Sometimes show and tell about new technologies we're working on. Sometimes it's, just to say hello. You know, we're a relationship built company, a lot of collaboration. so if we have a chance and we're in the area, we're going to try to come see our customers, you know, just kind of build that relationship. 00:21:05 Sumer Beatty: That ties into, you're very relationship oriented. I'd read, I think you had mentioned or posted something about servant leadership. I'm just curious how you adopted that philosophy and what, how does that play out and how you lead your team? 00:21:19 Sean Stabler: Yeah, servant leadership, you know, it is a term that's, that's used a lot. When I first heard it, I was like, Oh, I think I already do this. Right? You know, as, as a, as a human being, and a lot of it stems back to growing up on the farm, you know, a lot of different farmers, a lot of farmers in the area didn't have all the equipment they need to get the job done, you know, borrowing equipment, tractors, hay binds, things like that. So when I thought about servant leadership, you know, what does it mean? I'm like, Oh, I grew up doing this. Because I would go to the next neighbor's farm and maybe I'm the labor to help out, or maybe I'm asking to borrow some of their equipment and things like that. So it's really about trying to help each other out, try to understand where they are. We don't always have the convenience just to buy everything we want, though. that's how we started. So for me, it's, it's kind of how I was born and raised. Now, when I got into the workforce, a lot of it was my curiosity. I just want to understand, like, what do you do in your job? what hurts and what feels nice and like, how do I make your life worse or better? You know, if I don't ask those questions, I could go the wrong way. So it's really about trying to understand the folks, you know, meet them where they are as part of the course of action and try to understand like what we can do to make their lives easier. I had a manager at my last job. I'd loved the slogan. He always says, it's not work if you enjoy it. And he used to always say it and I'm like, oh, one day it just connected. I like what I do. So it's not really work. I enjoy coming in. So the days it feels like it's work, it's not as much fun. So it's, it kind of all ties back into, you know, trying to work well with your, your teammates and, and, try to make them, give them the tools, I guess, to do the best job. 00:22:58 Sumer Beatty: And how did you roll that engineering background into a leadership position? 00:23:04 Sean Stabler: It was unbeknownst to me, I guess. So, at the last company I worked for, Arkema, it's in King of Prussia, it's a chemical company, I really started out as like a bottom of the food chain engineer, right? Just coming out after I graduated from Penn College and left West Company to join Arkema. I wanted to get into research and development. So I was really learning from the basics, working the ground up. And what I was doing is I was learning about different processing equipment. A lot of it we had here at Penn College. So I was kind of one up there. So it was comfortable. And then I started to learn more about the chemistries and things that we're going to run through the equipment. So I was learning how to process the materials on the equipment. And at some point that the projects you're working on in a research and development phase has to commercialize. And so I went with those and that's what got me out into the field, traveled the U. S., a lot in Asia and Europe. But I was working with different clients to help them run the materials. And you kind of get good at it after, after a while. I think not to toot your own horn, but you kind of talk about the same things over and over and over and you become very confident. I think once you become confident professionally, you kind of become more of a leader unintentionally. So as I'm coming back to the plants, I'm trying to teach them what I learned, what's new and exciting. And you really start that collaboration again with, with your other colleagues. And it's at some point you get, you don't even realize it. I think that you just become a leader. You know, they're coming to you. I think, Sean, I have these questions. Oh, I saw this once. Here's what you should do. Or here's what I tried and it didn't work. So let's try something different. 00:24:39 Sumer Beatty: Yeah. 00:24:39 Sean Stabler: So it kind of comes naturally, I'd say. 00:24:43 Sumer Beatty: Did you have any mentors along the way or anybody that helped you? 00:24:46 Sean Stabler: Yeah, I'm very fortunate. I had some really good mentors, managers, supervisors, colleagues. Very few I haven't gotten along with or haven't learned something from. And I've always kind of had this, this motto, like, you know, take, take an experience with somebody. You know, you're learning something from a manager, supervisor, and try to find out the good things that work for them that align with your personality. And if it doesn't, don't waste your time on it. So, kind of as I was going through my career, I've been learning all these little nuances, I guess, from different individuals. It's kind of been interwoven to me, if that makes sense. Certain things just do not fit my personality, you know. It's just, I know who I am. But I'm trying to align myself with the things I've noticed from others and trying to build on that. It's also on the hard skills too, you know, it's not just the soft skills. 00:25:37 Sumer Beatty: Is there something that excites you particularly with the industries and the services that you have, that you're offering? Is there anything that you really love doing? 00:25:45 Sean Stabler: Yeah, it's, coming from the polymer degree, we always get a bad rap. You know, I've been accused of killing sea turtles and causing pollution and cancer, right? So, polymers have a bad rap. There's certain areas it really doesn't belong, and we have to be honest with that. But society's built around polymers too. And most people don't recognize that. So what's really happening now that I see it's really starting to change. People always talked about sustainability and doing good for earth, but a lot of it was talk. I'd say in the last couple of years, maybe since post COVID, it's getting more serious. People are asking the right questions and they're taking it more serious. The sustainability topic is really exciting for me. I think if we can kind of be the catalyst to get things started, us as a company, but also like, my generation, the next generation is going to do a much better job than what we will. And I hope it continues to, to accelerate. 00:26:42 Carlos Ramos: What are some of the ways that SEKISUI KYDEX is leading the charge in sustainability? 00:26:47 Sean Stabler: Yeah, so SEKISUI KYDEX, we've always talked about sustainability. We've always done park cleanups. You know, we recycle 20 million pounds of material a year. We, we have electric cars to get between the plants. We, we have very little go to landfill. We actually sweep our dust up and sell it. People buy this stuff, right? Go to landfill, it's like a couple hundred kilograms per quarter. It's insane. It's more toiletries, right? But a lot of companies can do that. So we aren't really that much different. At least I hope not. You know, I know we're doing a lot of great things. But what we're trying to do is go even further. So we cofounded an alliance called Green Cabin Alliance where we're trying to help industry decide what does sustainability mean. And this is mostly for aviation. We're bringing in our peers, our competitors, you know, all the different faces of the industry to help drive things forward. That's what we're doing externally. Internally, what we're really focused on is being able to measure sustainability. And that's what gets exciting to me because I'm an engineer. I like numbers, right? So I can talk about doing the right things all day long, but when I measure it, I get excited. So one of the things that we started doing back in 2021 was a life cycle assessment. So we started pulling data of how do we make products, where the products come from, how are they shipped here, is it by train, is it by bus, you know, by truck, you know, how, what's the different sources it gets here. And then we also tie that in with our energy use. So, you know, how much electricity we use, propane, diesel, things like that. Essentially it's a ISO 14040/ISO 14044 which we're using these, these different protocols to standardize a way to measure and quantify sustainability. And now we can look at it as global warming potential, which is CO2, is what most people call it today. But if you remember 20 years ago, like acid rain, you know, we can measure acidification, eutrophication, drinking water. We have all this amazing data and it takes time to build in there. It takes quite an investment too. So we're fortunate SEKISUI KYDEX and our, our chemical company, SEKISUI Chemical Company, our, our parent company is, they care about this. It's allowed us to really invest in this, so we're really into infancies because this is what creates a strategy for future, and it's exciting. I'm really happy where we are. Got a lot of work to do, though. 00:29:07 Carlos Ramos: It sounds like everything that you're producing, they're more of the durable goods. You're not dealing with the single use plastics of the water bottles or things like that. What's the perspective of the industry on the consumer impacts of sustainability? How big is that compared to, say, the industrial? 00:29:27 Sean Stabler: It's a really, really important question, because there's really the commodities, which I'll call the single use, you know, your water bottles, grocery bags, and then the engineered goods, the durable goods. They can both be handled differently, and it's important to kind of segregate them a little bit. Life was pretty good before plastic grocery bags. So paper bags work, reusable, they all work too. But before you'd want to say one's bad or one's good, you have to really have like an outlet, like an infrastructure for the recycling. And I'd say the U. S. is a bit behind on the infrastructure. you see a lot more activity definitely in Europe and European countries. They're, they're really setting the stage for how to handle the materials. Some of them just simply ban because it's easier than figuring out how to handle these, these recycle streams. But the fact of the matter is almost all plastics can be recycled if we can get them to the right area for the recycling to happen. I don't have a solution for that. What I can focus on really is, is our materials. So we do recycle in-house generated scrap, but I also buy back scrap from a lot of our customers. We don't make money at this. You know, we lose money because it's the right thing to do. We're trying to keep out of landfill. It's especially hard for our customers in Europe. It's doesn't make sense if you think of the life cycle to ship our material to Europe, ship the scrap back here, reuse it and ship it back. So we have a lot of different initiatives right now to figure out how do we set up good recyclers in Europe to use our materials as it's intended. Because from an R&D perspective, all of our products are created to be used at least 10 times. And that's part of like the R&D development, because we want it to be reused. And we have recycled products we sell commercially on the market. So we want to make sure that these durable goods or engineered goods, are being used after it's intended use and not going to landfill. So it's difficult dynamics, but it's really important for our business, but also the industry. 00:31:23 Carlos Ramos: It's great to have you in a role that sees that importance and is doing something about it. 00:31:28 Sean Stabler: Thank you. It's not just me. I gotta be humble here. Like, it's our, our group. You know, we just finished up some of our mission, vision, values and trying to redefine it. At the end of the day, we didn't have to define it because we realized we are who we are, and it's defined pretty well. And one of those important aspects is environmental concerns. So when you're at our facility, you see it like folks are recycling and moving things around within the plant as, as well as they can. So we got to continue giving them the tools and keep investing in the sustainability aspect. 00:31:57 Sumer Beatty: As you have more and more Penn College graduates and just graduates in general coming in, do you feel like sustainability is more of a focus with younger people as they're coming in? 00:32:07 Sean Stabler: Yeah, I've, I really noticed that coming in to speak to freshmen. I've been coming back for, gosh, 15, 16 years. I talked to about every freshman class here and I've seen this environmental aspect is really important because one of the questions I like to ask all the freshmen is like, what is your passion? What is your interest? What is your hobby? Because I like to see like a connection or show them a connection to what their passion is, because going back to it's not work if you enjoy it. Right? So, so if I can make that connection with them, it's, it's great. But what you see is like, there's a lot of sustainability questions coming up with the freshman students. I'll be honest, when I was a freshman, I still trying to figure out what is plastic. So, they're leaps and bounds ahead of where I was at that age. But I'd say, yeah, the last 10 years, there's been a lot more questions around sustainability. And I think that's a great opportunity for Penn College to weave the sustainability message into the polymers program. And I know they're working on it, right? It's happening because it is important. You know, you don't want to go in a career that gets all this negative publicity that's unfounded at times. Sometimes it is true. 00:33:09 Sumer Beatty: I have noticed just speaking with students in the polymer program that they do have that sustainability outlook, and they're here because, not because of single use water bottles and they want to make a bunch of water bottles, you know. They're here to learn how to make a difference. And it is really cool, like I've noticed that in our conversations. And I also love that you come back and you talk to these freshmen, and you're just so giving to the College, and if we ask you for, you know, to come here on the podcast or to let us do a video, like. Can you talk a little bit about the partnership? Just, you can mention your personal connection and that partnership, but just SEKISUI in general as well, and why that matters. 00:33:48 Sean Stabler: Yeah, so SEKISUI KYDEX, we really partner with two schools: Penn College and Bloom University. You know, we need students that are very different from both schools. So it's not competing. Don't worry. On the Penn College, it really was starting around the polymers because we, we make polymer stuff, right? So it made sense. But over the last couple of years, we've really been reaching a little bit deeper to get into graphic designers and the design groups, because we moved into like prototyping. We tie in the artistic piece and the polymers. So Penn College has so much to offer us. as a company. And they have so much to offer a lot of other companies too, but selfishly I want as many as I can. So we, we've always held Penn College as a partner. And we're very vocal about that. We do as much PR as we can with the school because we both benefit from it. Ideally, central PA is a net exporter of students, of humans, right? We want to have more people here. So ideally we want to work with, with Penn College and other schools to show that this is a great area to grow up, to live, to work, raise a family. So it's important for the ecosystem we're in here at Central PA to get our students, offer them a job, have them give back. So that's, it's really important for our partnership. We do offer scholarships. We participate in a Polymer Promise Scholarship as well, which is a, a match from Penn College. So we, we try to financially help the students get started because they're probably in the same situation I was. I didn't, I didn't get the scholarships, but now we get to give them. And it's great for the company to give them and even as leadership changes within SEKISUI KYDEX like the feeling is so important because we have so much of the alumni in our organization. Like, we have to support Penn College because they're vital to who we are. I need to hire the students because someday I'll retire not for a long time but I mean it's it's really a a great collaboration if you will between the the school and the company. 00:35:42 Carlos Ramos: Plastics and polymers continues to grow. We hear about shortages of labor for that industry in particular. We also know that other schools that are offering programs that are similar to ours, they're facing some of the same challenges that we are, in that students aren't quite connecting at a high school to say, oh yeah, polymer engineering, that's something I'd like to do. What are some of the things that you're seeing that could make that more apparent to a student in high school who's not sure what they want to do, or maybe like you, thought they wanted to be in mechanical engineering and said, maybe something else. What are some of the ways that you see that we could make that connection better, either as a college or within partnership with industry? 00:36:31 Sean Stabler: Great question. Cause I kind of see two different avenues. One is reach out to the students, right? There's a lot of high school, a lot of students, but where do you start that? That's, that's the first question. The other avenue is reach out to the teachers. Again, where do you start that? So, as an example, as two weeks ago, SEKISUI KYDEX participated in a local, science fair competition through the museum in Bloomsburg. And that's our way to reach not only students and the teacher at the same time, but those students already have some type of technical interest. That's why they're doing it. So, we're already meeting students that's already in there, so it's us trying to give them some examples, what could you do with this further, right? The, the other area is, we spend a lot of time, not only six week cadics, but also Penn College and SPE Society of Polymer Engineers. They have the Plastivan. We have a mobile thermoformer. We go to a lot of schools. We try to bring a bunch of classes all together. There's nothing greater than seeing plastic heat up and then form it around something. It's just satisfying. And kids love it. We have lots of colors. So we try to make it interactive, like this is what you can do as a potential career. You could get there from being a polymer engineer, you could get there from being in automation, or in graphic design, and Penn College has all this. You can get a certificate. There's a lot of different avenues. So, we spend a lot of time getting into as many schools as we can, but we can't reach all the schools. So, like, it's usually the local schools that get the most influence. And as a result, I think you see a lot of freshman class are within this, this proximity, which isn't a bad thing. You know, there's a lot of great talent here, But me as an employer, it's important to have jobs here to keep people here. If we keep them here, they're going to have children and hopefully come to Penn College. But Penn College isn't just for high school kids. They have the apprenticeships, you know, you can get certificate programs. The Workforce Development here is fantastic. phenomenal. It's probably one of the best in the country. So there's a lot of training and curriculum development and things that we can all do as a, as a partnership to help develop adults, children, high school, elementary school students. 00:38:33 Carlos Ramos: One of the elements of the Workforce Development is the Plastics Innovation Resource Center. Do you work with that group? 00:38:39 Sean Stabler: I was actually going to meet with them before this podcast today to talk about sustainability and recycling. But I didn't read my email in time. So I'll set up a call next week. 00:38:52 Sumer Beatty: That's so great to have that communication. I think Penn College does a great job with, like, trying to make sure industry, you know, and the college are just working hand in hand to fill those needs that you all have and, and that our students, you know, want those opportunities. 00:39:06 Sean Stabler: I love having these advisory board meetings where we have all the manufacturers. Sometimes the students are in there presenting their capstones. You've got the professors there, you have PIRC. It's, it's, it's a really good day of talking about the industry and what can we do better. There's always room for improvement, right? Maybe that's my innovation side coming out, but there's always an opportunity. 00:39:25 Sumer Beatty: What advice would you give someone aspiring to become a leader in a technical field? 00:39:31 Sean Stabler: First is to be insanely curious. Ask a lot of questions and try to understand that. Don't ask questions to rub people the wrong way, but generally try to understand the curiosity pieces. The most important aspect, I would hire anyone that's curious over some of all the degrees in the world. So that that's the first piece, but also I'd say maybe it goes back to the servant leadership question earlier. Try to understand as much as you can all the way up through. I was fortunate at West Company and Arkema, I kind of worked my way up so I knew all the skeletons in the closet, the things that were difficult. I was less fortunate when I came to KYDEX because I came in in a department manager type role initially, and I didn't fight in the battles that everyone did on the floor, right? So the more that an individual can understand the whole ecosystem of the business or the company that they're in, the better off they are because it's all interconnected. You can easily make decisions. It's going to cause your teammates some grief. Or you can make decisions that really help them out. So, be curious, talk to your teammates, understand the processes. And don't be afraid to get dirty on the floor. It's never, never above you, right? So, try to understand everything from the ground up. 00:40:48 Sumer Beatty: Nice, that's good advice. 00:40:49 Carlos Ramos: Thank you, Sean, for joining us. 00:40:51 Sean Stabler: I appreciate it. 00:40:51 Sumer Beatty: That was fun. Thank you. 00:40:52 Sean Stabler: Thank you. 00:40:56 Sumer Beatty: Thanks for hanging out with us today. 00:40:58 Carlos Ramos: Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. 00:41:02 Sumer Beatty: Check out our show notes for bookmarks to your favorite sections and links to resources that we mentioned in today's episode. 00:41:09 Carlos Ramos: You can also find past episodes and see what's on deck for upcoming ones at pct.edu/podcast. 00:41:15 Sumer Beatty: And of course, we are open to your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, so send those over at At podcast@pct.edu. 00:41:24 Carlos Ramos: It's been real. 00:41:25 Sumer Beatty: Catch you next time. I haven't messed that up in a long time. Every time I'm like, do I know it? Yes, I know it. This is the Easter egg, isn't it? 00:41:36 Carlos Ramos: It's gonna have to be, 'cause I don't think... 00:41:37 Sumer Beatty: Bury it. 00:41:37 Carlos Ramos: ...we had an Easter egg in the whole rest of the piece.