End Of The Year

And the last newsletter I'll put out for 2021

I changed the structure of this newsletter back at the beginning of October and I want to welcome the 114 people who have agreed to get emails from me since then. You might be wondering why I write about M&A activity, product development, oil news, green chemistry, and chemical careers. I think all of these topics influence my day to day life in some way as a chemist and weirdly enough in the last week all many of these topics have been part of my life in some way.

The Polymerist is sponsored by:

In the last two weeks I had a manufacturing trial in an effort to cut raw material cost inflation and I learned my company was getting sold to Saint-Gobain for $2.3 billion dollars. For the past 8 months I’ve been doing incremental innovation to reduce costs, find new raw material suppliers, and mitigate potential supply chain disasters. It hasn’t been the most intellectually stimulating work environment, but it’s been super valuable work for me because I’ve gotten to work with a diverse cross functional team. I’ve learned more about the other parts of my company’s business in the past 3 months than the prior 21 months.

Seeing a manufacturing trial go very close to how you envisioned it is rewarding. Working cross functionally with different departments to figure stuff out is also super rewarding, especially if the problems you are overcoming have historically been an issue. My point here is that I’m finding other types of success outside of the lab to be interesting and I think having a broad scope of view through this newsletter has been especially helpful. 

I think as scientists or engineers our problems are straightforward. The reaction works or doesn’t work. The yield is either too low or it isn’t pure enough. The separation worked well or it didn’t work. It’s easy to gauge success on the bench or in the plant. We often measure success on our technical achievements, but I’d say the foundation of our abilities also enables us to handle other problems that are not as straightforward. Boudewijn talked about how his technical background served as an excellent foundation for being a commercial leader or even an operations leader. 

The point I’m trying to make here is I think if you are working in the chemical industry in a technical role there are abundant opportunities for you outside of the industry and in non-technical roles. At the Eastern Coatings Show I was trying to educate a young private equity guy on how the chemical industry works. I’m sure his company was looking for some potential acquisitions and I truly think if he read this newsletter he would be better prepared for his job because writing this newsletter makes me feel better prepared for my own job. 

A Word From My Sponsor

I’ve known Stephanie Kemp at CPS for almost 5 years now. She is a conssummate professional and she is one of the recruiters I keep in touch with frequently. This is the end of the sponsorship run for CPS, at least for now, but Stephanie did tell me that there are three new jobs posted on their website. All of them appear to be in Cleveland, Ohio.

Formulations Chemist - Fireproof Coatings, $80-95k/year salary

Sr. R&D Leader Pigment Dispersions, $90-110k/year salary

R&D Leader - Composite Repair Products $70-95k/year salary

If you are interested in these jobs reach out to Stephanie Kemp.

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The chemical industry is integral to how modern life works. A bunch of people sent me this New York Times article about fertilizer prices. I was writing about fertilizer back in March and how prices were going up back then too. Check out BPS Agriculture for some potential relief on using less fertilizer. One thing I want this newsletter to do is to also help the readers understand how influential the chemical industry is on a lot of our day to day lives in addition to helping those in the industry navigate their careers and just doing well in their jobs. I really just want to be helpful to the audience.

It’s why the sponsors I try to have here are aimed at being useful for the audience. I don’t want to sell you on why you should sign-up for HBO Max (Succession, duh). I love having discussions with readers via email, the comments, on Twitter, or via LinkedIn. I’m also taking the rest of the month off. I need time to recharge and think. Even just writing this short newsletter today has been a real struggle. I’ll leave you all with my favorite December soundtrack.

Hoping to see some snow here in New England soon. I’ll talk to you next year.

Tony