I recently caught up with Cliff Kowall, The Lubrizol Corporation (Berkshire Hathaway), and co-chair of the upcoming session, What the Heck Happened? Past, Present & Future Disruptions to the Chemical/Fuels Business, at the 2018 AIChE Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA. This session focuses on major disruptive forces over the last 60 years, and their impact on the chemical business and chemical engineering.
What is your role for the 2018 Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh?
I serve as the meeting program co-chair at this year’s Annual Meeting. To a large extent, my role has been to link the meeting to the interests of engineers who are working in the profession beyond the academic world. Chemical engineering as a profession and the skills required of a working engineer are evolving at an accelerated rate. I believe that AIChE — and particularly through these sponsored meetings — plays a key role in highlighting this evolution and the scope of these changes, while also providing the opportunity for engineers to network with others in the field. Attending the meeting provides a base on which to build further knowledge and skills.
Tell us how the idea for your event, “What the Heck Happened? Past, Present & Future Disruptions to the Chemical/Fuels Business” came about.
Both employers and employees look at the engineering profession in a fundamentally different way today than when I entered the workforce. Engineers are expected to have a broader view of their role as a professional and as an employee. Technical competence is a given for anyone practicing in the field, but it's also fundamental for engineers to have an understanding of various industry-related economic drivers. Likewise, chemical engineers need to understand how their work affects the company's overall profitability, and they are also required to have an understanding of various legal and social issues such as responsible/ethical conformity with regulations and community stewardship.
The lesson is to be very attentive to these global events and to be thoughtful about how your employer might respond, even though you may ultimately have little control over that. More important, however, is how you prepare personally for those events, because that's an area where you do have control.
The US chemical business has been buffeted by huge disruptive forces over the past four decades. These include the energy crises of the 1970’s; the increased role of the financial community, which changed many companies from a large diversified multi-market, R&D structure to a smaller single market, applied research structure; the migration of the chemical industry away from the US and closer to off-shore raw material sources in the early 2000’s and the reversal of that trend in recent years due to increased supplies of natural gas and consequent feedstocks. Each of these has directly influenced both the demand for chemical engineers as well as the skills expected of both graduating and seasoned engineers. This session targets experienced executives who have lived through these disruptions. The speakers each have a unique perspective on how these changes affected them and how new forces may shape the future of the profession.
Over the last 50 years, the chemical industry has undergone many changes. In your opinion, how have these changes shaped the chemical industry today, and are there any noteworthy ways companies have adapted to the continuously evolving industry landscape?
I can only put this in the context of my own career and how it required me to make changes in my professional life, but there are many examples. For instance, when high energy prices made distillation undesirable, I learned about and applied lower-energy alternatives such as adsorption or absorption. As my employer changed strategic focus between different raw material sources, I learned about coal gasification or off-shore natural gas liquids. As design engineering moved to external suppliers rather than in-house design, I acquired new skills in such areas as supply-chain management. And as fuel emission standards became stricter, I learned about the synergy between fuel composition and engine design and operation. There are many more examples of how both my employer and I made dramatic changes in response to these market disruptions.
The lesson is to be very attentive to these global events and to be thoughtful about how your employer might respond, even though you may ultimately have little control over that. More important, however, is how you prepare personally for those events, because that's an area where you do have control.
Continuous learning is critical to maintaining current skills and developing new skills. Walking (and talking) among your fellow professionals on a regular basis raises your awareness and positions you for early response. Protecting your reputation and integrity is more important than ever, given the ease with which personal and professional information follows you. And always being prepared to compete with the very best in the marketplace when that time comes — and it is inevitable — to change employers or change careers.
What are you hoping attendees will learn from your event?
The intent from inception was to create a session which would resonate with an engineer who is either preparing to enter the working world or who is already practicing. This could be a long-time corporate employee, an entrepreneur, or someone firmly on an academic track. I believe that chemical engineering is intimately tied to more of the external world than any other engineering profession. Local events certainly have their impact, but the profession is by its very nature fully integrated into the global economy. Disruptions in places far from locations such as Pittsburgh and Cleveland have almost immediate impact locally in such things as fuel prices and supply. Regulatory changes translate quickly into how we perform our jobs in areas such as fuel economy and power plant emissions control. It is incumbent on each of us as professionals to learn to identify these and then to be nimble in how we address these for our employer or as individuals.
Click here to learn more about this event.
Join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook | #AIChEAnnual.
Cliff Kowall
Cliff is a Senior Technical Fellow in the Process Development Department and the Corporate Engineer at the Lubrizol Corporation. Read more.