Voting for next year's AIChE Board of Directors is under way as of September 8th at http://www.aiche.org/election. Have your say and help direct the future of AIChE by voting!
The Young Professionals Committee (YPC) asked potential members of AIChE's board four questions about Young Professionals and AIChE. They were asked to answer two main questions, and were given the option of choosing to respond to additional questions, so you may not see responses from every candidate for every question. Answers are shown in alphabetical order by position and the candidate's last name. This question is one of two optional questions, so you won't see a response from every candidate.
In addition to learning about the candidates here, you can also learn more about candidates and the election process on the AIChE election page. You can also hear from candidates for president-elect in this debate.
Q: (Optional) What is your best memory of being a young chemical engineer?
For President-Elect
T. Bond Calloway
The month after we pumped the first 10,000 gallons of nuclear waste into the Defense Waste Processing Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. While we had filled several vessels with radioactive waste, we had not yet started up the glass melter (designed to incorporate the highly radioactive waste in a glass matrix and then pour it into a stainless steel canister). The melter’s pour spout would routinely clog up with molten glass and then solidify. This prevented the plant from attaining the desired rate of production. The only way to unclog the pour spout was to manually enter the cell by climbing down 40 feet of piping and then carefully ramming a steel rod into the pour spout. Two days before we were scheduled to place the melter into radioactive operations, I got to climb into the radioactive canyon (of course with the proper safety gear, the radioactivity contained in tanks, and with sufficient shielding) with a small team and break out the glass from the pour spot for the final time. This involved scaling down the piping into the melter cell and carefully standing under the melter pour spot with a melter full of molten glass. I remember being nervous that hot glass might drip out and land on my arms. Even though my colleagues had done this many times, this was a first for me. And, this was the last time this was ever done since we installed a robotic arm to do the same thing prior to making the melter radioactive.
Wendy Young Reed
My best memory is of the fun times with the group that started the precursor to the YPC, the Young Professionals Advisory Board. One particular that stands out is when we hosted a costume party at the Annual Student Conference that fell over the Halloween weekend. We had a costume contest and all of the students really got into it!
For Secretary
Freeman Self
One fond memory is meeting interesting and varied chemical engineers. I have worked with many of them over the years. And we still stay connected and collaborate on projects. I was lucky since I joined the large South Texas Section. Numerous officers, Directors and Presidents have belonged to STS at some time in their career. Their involvement has encouraged my participation in AIChE.
Rosemarie Wesson
My first job as a young BS chemical engineer was with Dow Chemical Company. I worked in a styrenics based research facility. I was put in charge of what was called a one-pound per hour miniplant. The miniplant was used to research various plastic resin formulations and consisted of monomer tanks, heated reactors, extruders and all of the necessary piping. During "runs" the miniplant operated 24 hours per day. As a young female engineer, I was very proud of myself when, after only a few short months, I learned to safely and successfully operate the miniplant.
For Director
Heriberto Cabezas
My most memorable experience as young engineer was giving my first professional talk at an AIChE meeting. I think that it was the 1983 Spring Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, but that is not important. What is important is that I stood at the podium with my slides — we did use hard copy slides in those pre-PowerPoint days — and I looked at the audience only to realize that every professor that had ever written any book that I had read was there listening to me. It was both petrifying and exciting all at once, and I still remember it clear as day.
Gregory T. Frank
Aside from the professor who once exclaimed during the final exam that it was impossible, perhaps the best memory is when I was considering which field of engineering to go into at college. I spoke with a chemical engineering professor and asked, what can a chemical engineer do? The response I got has been with me ever since. So what was the response to my question? By learning the fundamentals of math, science, and engineering that form the basis of a chemical engineering curriculum your opportunities are limitless. Combining your chemical engineering knowledge with specific chemistry/biochemistry related to a particular field you’ll be able to make significant contributions in almost any area. This has stayed with me and given me confidence through my career as I’ve worked in different settings. You can see the truth in this when you look at all the areas your colleagues work in. Our profession is uniquely positioned to t ake on a wide range of challenges in the areas of energy, chemicals, food, health, education, materials, and bioengineering.
Good luck to each of you as you embark on your careers. Each person’s path is different, enjoy the journey.
Zenaida Otero Gephardt
I started my career at the Engineering Technology Laboratory of the DuPont Company in Wilmington, DE. I had the opportunity to work on projects with multi-million dollar impact on company sites, jobs and the community. My best memory was working alongside senior engineers who freely shared their expertise to benefit the projects and my development. There was always an understanding that safety and the common good mattered. I was inspired by that and try to offer that thinking to my students today.
Meagan Lewis
As a young professional I still consider myself a young chemical engineer so I am going to reflect way back to college! My favorite memory was being the director of an event at the University of Illinois called Engineering Open House. Engineering Open House is a two day event that brings together thousands of people from the community and from the university to get excited about engineering. How great is that! I had the opportunity to lead a team of peers to help plan this awesome event that helps inspire the next generation of engineers and leaders and also educate the public. The planning took almost a full year and countless late nights prior to the event. We helped students set up hundreds of exhibits and design competitions for high school students and other colleges. The whole event wraps up with a grand ball with professors, award winners and fellow students. It is definitely an experience I will never forget and hope to bring the learnings and experience into my volunteer work in AIChE.
Timothy O. Odi
Helping to avoid an accident and injury during the dilution of sulfuric acid (98wt%) with water by operators in a plant. Advised the operators to add small amounts of the acid to the water with stirring to avoid boiling and injury from the heat of mixing, but my advice was ignored. Instead, the operators added some water to a 4-gallon container of the acid initially, and got an immediate boiling and splashing of the acid due to excessive mixing heat. Thereafter, my advice was heeded and the right concentration of the acid was achieved without further incidents. The lesson is learning to speak up on time, and respectfully too, on subjects we understand without any inhibition.
Joseph B. Powell
Getting that first job in the research lab as an undergraduate and getting to work with a professor and graduate students, then an industry internship and ultimately a Ph.D. and full-time job that paid more than I could imagine, was awesome! Once in industry, solving a tough problem to make a process work at commercial scale, using a good deal of what I had learned in school, was quite a thrill. It's great to make a difference!
Edward M. Trujillo
One of my best memories of being a young chemical engineer was my first professional job after I received my Master’s degree. I worked for a tissue manufacturing company and was responsible for quality control of various paper products. It was quite interesting to learn about the paper-making process and how I could help the company solve some of their problems. The pay was good and I was surprised by how much the company valued their engineers and how much responsibility was given to new engineers. However, I was fortunate to have a very good mentor who helped me through the apprenticeship program.
Ranil Wickramasinghe
After I obtained my PhD I moved to the Boston area and started working for a startup company. This was quite different to graduate school. In addition I had few contacts in the Boston area. I found my work interesting and my colleagues friendly. I enjoyed the new working environment. However my involvement with the Ichthyologists (Boston Local Section) is one of my best memories. I had not been very active in AIChE. After my undergraduate degree I directly started my PhD so I had little idea of what is it was like to work in industry. As I worked for a biotechnology start up I was still in a research environment, thus the local section meetings soon became an important part of my professional life. Though the talks were interesting, I do not remember any of them today! However what I do remember are the people I met and the friendships that developed. These interactions gave me a much deeper appreciation of the diversity of our profe ssion. I became the newsletter editor for the Boston Local Section. This enabled me to attend the Leadership Development Conference representing the Boston Local Section. Again what I remember most from this meeting is the local section leaders I met and the friendships that resulted. I enjoyed being newsletter editor. As we did not have electronic newsletters then, it was important to take the newsletters to the post office by the mailing deadline! Compiling the newsletters put me in touch with our members’ activities. I left the Boston area for career reasons (I accepted a position as an assistant professor at Colorado State University). However I vividly remember that I missed the local section so much I flew back for one of the meetings!