Adventures at a Start-up Company vs the Corporate Gig

Adventures at a Start-up Company vs the Corporate Gig

Chris Rentsch, Head of Engineering, Origin Materials, will be our second speaker of the 2017/2018 Mid-Michigan AIChE seminar series speaking on:

Wednesday November 15 from 6:00 to 7:30 PM
At the Grand Traverse Pie Company
2600 N Saginaw Rd, Midland, MI 48640

Chris Rentsch started his career in 2004 at the BP Toledo Refinery then joined Dow in 2007 where he held a variety of roles in Ag Chem manufacturing and lithium ion battery materials development and scale up. In 2014 he changed his scenery by joining the venture capital world and is currently Head of Engineering for Origin Materials, a small California-based start-up company pursuing renewable plastic from Gen-2 biomass feedstocks.

While BP employs 74,500 and DowDuPont employs 102,000, Origin Materials employs just 52 people, yet aspires to deliver a renewable monomer to market within two years. How does a company scale up without significant corporate support or institutional expertise? Come for one engineer's candid perspective on how work at a large company contrasts with work at a company so small that everyone still knows everybody's name.

Complimentary sandwiches will be available, first come, first serve at 6 with Mark’s talk starting around 6:30.

Please plan to spend an evening with colleagues and hear what is sure to be an interesting talk from Chris.