Timothy McMaster - PTI Extruders /Director Select Scholarship ($3,000)
Tim is a senior at Pittsburg State University working on his B.S. in Plastics Engineering Technology. He was a Thermoforming Scholarship recipient last year. The continued support of this scholarship will help ease the burden of supporting a family (wife and two children) and getting a degree.
Tim works at a custom fiberglass shop that manufactures corrosion resistant air handling equipment. Last spring, his employer mentioned to a customer that Tim had been awarded the John Griep Memorial Scholarship. This prompted the customer, who was trying to fabricate the product from fiberglass, to consider using thermoformed ABS instead. “Having received the scholarship gave my company and me enough credibility to be chosen as the tool and pattern fabricator for this customer, and resulted in a tool-building job for our company for years to come,” said Tim.
A USMC veteran who served in the first Gulf war, Tim hopes to go on to graduate school and one day realize his dream of owning his own successful thermoforming manufacturing business.
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 Marcus Gardner - Edward Segan Memorial Scholarship ($7,500)Marcus is a junior at Grand Rapids Community College where he is working on an Associates degree in Plastics Technology.
After working for 12 years as a thermoforming set-up technician, Marcus realized that it was difficult to advance without a formal education and chose to return to school to seek a degree in Plastics Technology. He and his wife, a public school teacher, felt that going back to school was his best option to further his career – and a great example for their two children. After obtaining his Associates degree next year, Marcus plans to transfer to Ferris State University to obtain his B.S. in Plastics Engineering/Technology.
Marcus worked as a thermoforming technician for Leisure Life LTD and Display Pack, Inc., both in Grand Rapids, MI.
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7,500 GRIEP MEMORIAL
SCHOLARSHIP
KATIE LIEG
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
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$7,500 THERMOFORMING MEMORIAL
SCHOLARSHIP
JARED SPANIOL
PENN STATE - ERIE |
 Katie Lieg - John Griep Memorial Scholarship ($7,500)
Katie is a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a member of SPE, ASME, and SAE, and was an active member of the Wisconsin Hybrid Baja SAE team while an undergraduate student.
Katie’s focus in Mechanical Engineering has been in the area of polymeric fluids. She worked as an undergraduate researcher for the Multiphase Flow Visualization and Analysis Laboratory on campus, working on small engine carburetors. That experience led to a co-op at Mercury Marine, where all of the Mercury outboard boat engines are produced. Her work there in the propulsion integration group included designing engine components for new engines.
According to her senior thesis professor, Katie decided that the mechanics of thermoforming has been sorely neglected, so she identified, set up and solved the central problem in her field. Her paper on that work, Thermoforming Troughs, was presented at the 2008 ANTEC, and has been submitted for possible inclusion in SPE’s premier journal, Polymer Engineering & Science. |
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Jared Spaniol - Thermoforming Memorial Scholarship ($7,500)
Jared is a senior at Penn State – Erie (The Behrend College) studying for his B.S. in Plastics Engineering Technology. After serving for four years in the U.S. Air Force, including tours to Korea and Germany, Jared returned home to pursue a degree in plastics engineering at PSE.
Jared’s senior research project entails the development of a tool to test the thermoformability of plastics materials. His research will focus on what properties make one sheet more thermoformable than another. The properties that will undergo testing are the ability to be deep drawn, webbing propensity, and maximum draw ratio. The tool developed will hopefully then be used to distinguish between easily-formable materials and materials that resist thermoforming.
After graduation from PSE, Jared hopes to go to graduate school at Lehigh University or the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. A hands-on person, he wants to be involved in many stages of a product, including development, design, processing and production. |
