Portsmouth Daily-Times: Johnson tours SSU progress

News Article

By Joseph Pratt

Congressman Bill Johnson recently made a trip to Shawnee State University (SSU), where he received an updated report with campus officials, including an in-depth view of SSU's plastics department through a guided tour. Johnson witnessed the process of plastics in action and received intel from professors and students in the program.

The plastics program at SSU emphasizes plastics processing operations and includes significant components in the areas of materials, mold design, and production methods.

Graduates of the program are prepared to assume professional positions in the plastics manufacturing industry. Typical job titles are process engineer, project engineer, and production manager.

This trip is the third time Johnson has made a stop to SSU.

"A lot of innovation is going on here," Johnson claimed after his tour. "We are talking a lot about the oil boom in eastern Ohio lately and the plastics program here is a big beneficiary in that, because a lot of the raw materials that comes out of oil and gas are going into plastics manufacturing, so it is a big deal."

Johnson has toured many manufacturing outlets, as well as educational atmospheres, and believes Shawnee is one of the best in the field.

"It is great here. Every time I come, they have a new piece of machinery, or new technology, that they are using to lead the way with, so it is always very, very interesting," Johnson said. "Being one of the top four-year universities in plastics, with a 100 percent job placement after graduation, that is a pretty big deal. That is pretty attractive to young people, I think. When you think of the jobs of today and tomorrow, this is a really attractive and big deal."

Shawnee State's Dr. Larry Miller met with Johnson to provide him the tour of the facility. He is a professor dealing with the plastics department, where he has worked for 14 years.

"I thought it went great. He [Johnson] is always interested in what we do here and has helped us out a lot," Miller claimed. "He is the reason we were able to get the grant for the new twin screw extruder. I am happy anytime the congressman can come around."

According to Clextral, a manufacturer of twin screw extruders, the machine "consists of two intermeshing, co-rotating screws mounted on splinted shafts in a closed barrel. Due to a wide range of screw and barrel designs, various screw profiles and process functions can be set up according to process requirements. Hence, twin screw extruders are able to ensure transporting, compressing, mixing, cooking, shearing, heating, cooling, pumping, shaping, etc. with high level of flexibility. The major advantage of intermeshing co-rotating twin screw extruders is their remarkable mixing capability which confers exceptional characteristics to extruded products and adds significant value to processing units. In twin screw extrusion processing, the raw materials may be solids (powders, granulates, flours), liquids, slurries, and possibly gases. Extruded products are plastics compounds, chemically modified polymers, textured food and feed products, and cellulose pulp."

The extrusion process aims to physico-chemically transform continuously viscous polymeric media and produce high quality structured products thanks to the accurate control of processing conditions.

Miller agreed with Johnson that the program at Shawnee is one of the most successful.

"We have tremendous job opportunities, as well as graduate school opportunities," Miller said. "We have students offered a seat in a graduate school every year. Jobs are the most important aspect, however. Right now, we have the most jobs I've ever seen. When we had the great recession in 2008, automotive and plastics companies really cut back on people, but we've seen that rise back up and even better. People are being replenished right now hand over fist and we just can't keep up with supplying enough graduates."

Plastics is currently the largest industry in Ohio. On top of that, Shawnee is only university in the state of Ohio to offer a four-year degree on the subject, as well as one of the few on the United States.

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