PlastChicks

On this episode of PlastChicks – The Voices of Resin – Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Amanda Nicholson, Senior Project Engineer, The Madison Group, live at ANTEC® 2022. They discuss the importance of conducting professional moldflow analysis, establishing credibility as a young female engineer in the plastics industry, using short videos to provide pinpoint training for young engineers and different approaches to sustainability.

Show Notes

On this episode of PlastChicks – The Voices of Resin – Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Amanda Nicholson, Senior Project Engineer, The Madison Group, live at ANTEC® 2022. They discuss the importance of conducting professional moldflow analysis, establishing credibility as a young female engineer in the plastics industry, using short videos to provide pinpoint training for young engineers and different approaches to sustainability.

Watch the podcast at the SPE YouTube site.

PlastChicks is an SPE-sponsored podcast that is posted the first Friday of every month.

What is PlastChicks?

PlastChicks – The Voices of Resin, is a plastics podcast hosted by Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri, talking about popular plastics topics and the people inspiring the industry! This podcast is supported by the Plastics Industry Association and sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.

00;00;03;21 - 00;00;17;02
Mercedes Landazuri
If you've got a question, the voices of resin are here. Oh, PlastChicks.

00;00;17;15 - 00;00;18;02
Lynzie Nebel
PlastChicks is an SPE-sponsored podcast. Hi.

00;00;18;02 - 00;00;25;16
Mercedes Landazuri
Hello again. We're back. Here we are with another wonderful face of the plastics and polymer industry.

00;00;25;16 - 00;00;29;21
Lynzie Nebel
We're on ANTEC® 2022 Live interview season.

00;00;30;04 - 00;00;32;16
Mercedes Landazuri
Well, it's like two days.

00;00;32;16 - 00;00;39;15
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, it counts as a season. If it's more than 10 minutes, it's a season in my life. So I'm Lynzie Nebel.

00;00;39;15 - 00;00;41;00
Mercedes Landazuri
I am Mercedes Landazuri.

00;00;41;14 - 00;00;42;16
Amanda Nicholson
And I am Amanda Nicholson.

00;00;43;13 - 00;00;48;15
Mercedes Landazuri
And with our powers combined, we are PlastChicks, the voices of resin.

00;00;48;16 - 00;01;00;26
Lynzie Nebel
At last we're here and we're here, like I said, doing our live show ANTEC® 2022. You can listen to us anywhere you get your podcasts.

00;01;01;09 - 00;01;02;17
Mercedes Landazuri
Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcasts.

00;01;02;17 - 00;01;08;23
Lynzie Nebel
If you don't know where to get podcasts, you're probably not listening to us because that feels like you don't know where to find a podcast.

00;01;08;23 - 00;01;24;00
Mercedes Landazuri
You can also find us on SPE's YouTube channel, or you can go directly to the website for a SPE.org podcast. There's also we're not the only podcast on there anymore. There is also the DEI podcast, all new one on Plastics & Beyond.

00;01;24;12 - 00;01;50;25
Lynzie Nebel
And then if you want to find us on social media, we're on Instagram, we're on Twitter eventually maybe TikTok. So yeah, but today we have a super cool guest. Amanda Nicholson is a senior project engineer at The Madison Group. Days into her brand new job, three days. So if she has anything to say, please don't hold it against her in three years.

00;01;51;14 - 00;01;53;09
Mercedes Landazuri
Here boss was here so I hope her boss is watching.

00;01;54;15 - 00;02;03;12
Lynzie Nebel
All right, we'll keep it G-rated, but. All right, so welcome. First, tell us a little bit about your background and then tell us about The Madison Group.

00;02;04;02 - 00;02;08;22
Amanda Nicholson
Okay. I have a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Akron right out of school.

00;02;08;22 - 00;02;10;20
Lynzie Nebel
Love for Akron. Love it. I always love.

00;02;10;20 - 00;02;11;21
Mercedes Landazuri
Where the rubber meets the road.

00;02;11;21 - 00;02;12;02
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah.

00;02;13;01 - 00;02;30;23
Amanda Nicholson
I went to Parker-Hannifin. I worked in sales there selling hydraulic hoses and such wasn't technical. It wasn't technical enough. And so ended up at the Polymer Center of Excellence, which is awesome. It's just down the road from here. It's in Charlotte, North Carolina. Check them out. And yeah, I ended up at Moldex3D, running a little bit of simulation.

00;02;30;23 - 00;02;35;06
Amanda Nicholson
It was a great time there, but I'm now I'm at The Madison Group and absolutely thrilled to be here.

00;02;36;02 - 00;02;40;16
Lynzie Nebel
And three days in, what is the best part about the job -- this moment, right?

00;02;40;16 - 00;02;41;23
Amanda Nicholson
Absolutely. Yeah.

00;02;43;06 - 00;02;50;23
Lynzie Nebel
So tell us, what does The Madison Group do? Because, I mean, I heard it was very cleverly named. It was three guys who started it in Madison.

00;02;51;21 - 00;03;11;24
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah. So they are based in Madison, Wisconsin, and they do plastics consulting. They're global leader in plastics consulting. They do a lot of failure analysis, work with design evaluations, not like design itself, but just evaluations of existing designs and material evaluation. Any sort of plastic problem, we're up for the challenge.

00;03;12;13 - 00;03;23;22
Lynzie Nebel
You know, I did recently see one of your colleagues who's been there more than three days and he did a presentation. You guys have a lot of fun stuff there. You guys got a lot of cool toys. Yes.

00;03;23;22 - 00;03;30;26
Mercedes Landazuri
And you guys are going to start to do some key of yours in on our testing. Whether in testing. Yeah, it's a good color. Color in there.

00;03;31;13 - 00;03;38;03
Lynzie Nebel
So tell us, what is what's your piece of the puzzle? Because I don't think you're allowed to do all the toys, all the cool.

00;03;38;03 - 00;03;39;27
Amanda Nicholson
Not just yet. Maybe someday.

00;03;40;09 - 00;03;40;19
Lynzie Nebel
No

00;03;40;19 - 00;03;52;22
Amanda Nicholson
No. What I'm going to start out with is I'm joining the manufacturing and product development group and I am going to be starting out with a lot of MultiFlow simulations, basically helping people go from a design that they've got in mind, turning that into a manufacturable part.

00;03;53;11 - 00;04;10;26
Lynzie Nebel
So what kind of stuff do people come to you with? Would they just be like, you know, here's a part design. What do you think about it or is it are people approaching you further down in the design process where they're saying, like, we have this mold, what do we need to do? Where when do they come talk to you?

00;04;10;26 - 00;04;11;03
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah.

00;04;11;22 - 00;04;30;07
Amanda Nicholson
Well, it is a consulting business, so I would say all of the above. You're probably going to get a little bit of everything. But yeah, anything from an inventor who has an idea that's great. And they don't have a plastics background to companies who've got an existing mold and they're having problems with it. They're getting recalled like parts failures, that sort of thing.

00;04;30;09 - 00;04;31;09
Lynzie Nebel
Always bad. Yeah.

00;04;31;20 - 00;04;36;25
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah. So just troubleshooting plastics problems, helping people make robust parts that are profitable.

00;04;37;15 - 00;04;47;20
Mercedes Landazuri
So when you were at the Polymer Center of Excellence, you trained non plastic engineers, right? So what was the biggest misconception about plastics or misunderstanding?

00;04;48;02 - 00;05;01;14
Amanda Nicholson
So I had a really neat group of people. I would get people who were maybe running a press for 20 years but have never been formally trained. And then they'd be in the room with people who are degreed engineers, but maybe they were mechanical engineers coming over from metals. So they knew

00;05;01;14 - 00;05;03;07
Lynzie Nebel
that metal and plastic ain't the same.

00;05;03;20 - 00;05;15;05
Amanda Nicholson
Exactly. So the biggest hurdle was always conveying what plastics are like, how they behave, because they have fountain flow. There's no turbulence. They they're non-Newtonian, they have compressibility.

00;05;17;16 - 00;05;27;19
Mercedes Landazuri
Or fountain flow, what is that. Right, right, right. But like, besides what I'm thinking of, I can't imagine that that's happening on a production floor ever. What, what is so what is fountain flow.

00;05;27;19 - 00;05;29;22
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah, this is the way the plastic actually flows.

00;05;29;22 - 00;05;30;09
Amanda Nicholson
It's the layers.

00;05;30;10 - 00;05;33;09
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh I see it now. I see. Okay. Got it. Got it.

00;05;33;29 - 00;05;56;24
Lynzie Nebel
If you stop over at the I'll do the plug for the Beaumont guys. I'm pretty sure all their PowerPoints have fountain flow in them because that was one of my jobs as an intern is to like do all those graphics, not make the graphics and just literally copy and paste them. So you're doing a lot of the simulation stuff not to skip around, but that's my life.

00;05;56;24 - 00;06;12;15
Lynzie Nebel
How many times do you think people underestimate the importance of simulation? Because I know there's a lot of stuff that like smaller shops either think they don't have the time for or don't have the money for and think like it's going to be fine. Because yeah, if you're making like a dog toy, you're probably fine.

00;06;12;15 - 00;06;12;24
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah, yeah.

00;06;12;24 - 00;06;17;28
Lynzie Nebel
But how many times do you see people kind of like get bit by that kind of stuff?

00;06;18;16 - 00;06;21;01
Amanda Nicholson
Well, I can't give you a certain percentage or anything like that, but.

00;06;21;05 - 00;06;22;03
Lynzie Nebel
I want numbers. Yeah.

00;06;22;13 - 00;06;29;29
Amanda Nicholson
When I came out of school already and bushy tailed, I thought that everyone in this industry knew exactly how to injection mold everything. They had it all figured out.

00;06;30;23 - 00;06;33;01
Lynzie Nebel
That was a fun discovery. Wasn't it.

00;06;33;01 - 00;06;49;27
Amanda Nicholson
Bad. I felt like everyone does simulations. And then I found out very quickly that people have budgets, you know, and they have a limit to how much staff. So if you want to do a simulation, you either have to buy a very expensive seat of the software and then hire someone to run it or do one of, you know, simulations with consulting groups.

00;06;49;27 - 00;06;59;17
Amanda Nicholson
And that can really add up. But what I will say is it really does pay for itself, much like getting it home inspections before you buy a house, you want to know where all those problems are.

00;06;59;18 - 00;07;00;19
Lynzie Nebel
I didn't do that either.

00;07;01;25 - 00;07;10;00
Amanda Nicholson
I did. I actually got out of a house. That was it had black mold. It had a crumbling foundation and it had a retaining wall that was like bouncing all over.

00;07;10;11 - 00;07;16;09
Lynzie Nebel
That's the new simulation tagline. You will have black mold in your house if you don't get this.

00;07;16;10 - 00;07;26;03
Mercedes Landazuri
That happens is full circle then. Because in my mind, I had made a joke earlier about like, what do we do about this mold problem? But now it now it's. So we got to use that joke.

00;07;26;03 - 00;07;27;25
Lynzie Nebel
I like it. There'st a better way. We'll workshop it.

00;07;27;25 - 00;07;47;06
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, because I know I've seen a lot of times like people will skip it or say, like, Oh, well, we'll get it run while we're building the mold because obviously the mold build time. Yeah. Takes a good chunk of time and I've seen a lot of people try and like do them back to back and it's like an match up.

00;07;47;06 - 00;07;48;16
Lynzie Nebel
It's, it's okay.

00;07;48;21 - 00;07;49;02
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah.

00;07;49;25 - 00;08;04;11
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah. You want to know where your date location is going to be, what your runner layout is going to look like, and all that before, and also where your well plan is going to be. Are you even going to be able to fill out the part? Is the wall too thin? You got to know these things before you build the mold because that's a huge investment.

00;08;04;11 - 00;08;14;25
Lynzie Nebel
And what's the importance of having someone that's so well trained in it? Yeah, I mean, because I've seen people that like, yeah, I can I can run multiple, I can run yeah. Moldex. And you're like.

00;08;14;25 - 00;08;15;02
Lynzie Nebel
Do you?

00;08;15;02 - 00;08;15;29
Mercedes Landazuri
Can you though?

00;08;15;29 - 00;08;17;09
Lynzie Nebel
Can you though?

00;08;17;09 - 00;08;37;22
Amanda Nicholson
I would say, you know, garbage in, garbage out, if you know how your material is going to process, if you know your melt temperature, where your gate's going to be, what your runner system is going to look like, you can get a good idea of what the final part is going to look like. If you don't have that information and you're just making assumptions, or even if you have some good information but you don't know how to interpret the results, you're going to have a bad time with that.

00;08;37;22 - 00;08;44;22
Amanda Nicholson
So you do need someone with a plastics background who understands what the mold is actually going to look like to do this.

00;08;45;08 - 00;08;50;01
Lynzie Nebel
Well. I do love weird interpretation of results. That is one of my favorite things.

00;08;50;09 - 00;08;52;09
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah. So it's like the pretty colors.

00;08;52;09 - 00;09;13;28
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah. Well, yeah. So, so speaking of speaking of the strong plastics background, which, which you clearly have and seeing that we are PlastChicks here, all three of us, you know, we do have men on the show as well. But do you ever feel like you've had to prove credibility specifically because you're a woman or.

00;09;14;15 - 00;09;25;14
Lynzie Nebel
And you're doing a lot of I feel like you're in a lot of position of like educating people. And I feel like as a woman, sometimes you might have to overcome that a lot more than maybe a male colleague may have to.

00;09;25;14 - 00;09;27;10
Amanda Nicholson
Yes. I mean, that does play into it.

00;09;27;17 - 00;09;28;29
Lynzie Nebel
Or has that never happened to you?

00;09;29;05 - 00;09;29;28
Amanda Nicholson
Never once.

00;09;30;12 - 00;09;33;09
Mercedes Landazuri
But because you're you're also you're also because younger. Yeah.

00;09;33;13 - 00;09;51;27
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah. So that was kind of a huge hurdle when I first started training because not only was I the only woman in the room who's like a head tall, I head shorter at least, but also I was the youngest person in the room by a long shot. So in order to kind of establish credibility, I'd really have to show them that I can.

00;09;51;27 - 00;10;08;20
Amanda Nicholson
I can. Do you know what I'm actually teaching? So at the Polymer Center, I was really lucky in that there was a whole molding lab there, so I could literally take them into the lab and show them like, this is how I run the machine. And sure, I had to carry around a little step stool, so I could get up and reach everything.

00;10;08;23 - 00;10;11;05
Mercedes Landazuri
DId you climb up there in your Xenas? Do you have Xenas yet?

00;10;11;07 - 00;10;11;26
Amanda Nicholson
No, I don't have Xenas.

00;10;11;26 - 00;10;14;26
Mercedes Landazuri
A little plug - Xena Workwear, steel toes. They are amazing.

00;10;14;26 - 00;10;15;21
Lynzie Nebel
We'll get your steel toes going.

00;10;16;00 - 00;10;16;08
Amanda Nicholson
OK.

00;10;17;10 - 00;10;20;06
Amanda Nicholson
I've got steel toes, but they're not fashionable. I call them my clown shoes.

00;10;20;06 - 00;10;21;07
Lynzie Nebel
These ones are good.

00;10;21;07 - 00;10;21;20
Amanda Nicholson
Okay.

00;10;22;21 - 00;10;42;20
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, I can see I could see how that would be like a big issue with you know, sometimes I know I throw certain names of people I've worked for to prove my credibility, even though, as I've said it before, it doesn't change what I know. But in their minds, somehow it does. Which is frustrating.

00;10;44;03 - 00;10;59;11
Amanda Nicholson
To any new person coming into the industry, you don't know what their background is. You know that it's short. So is it good? Is it bad? What is it? You know, and that's true with anyone. You know, I've met people who have worked in the industry for 20 years, but it kind of seems like it was the same year repeated 20 times.

00;10;59;19 - 00;11;00;14
Amanda Nicholson
So I definitely

00;11;01;02 - 00;11;05;21
Lynzie Nebel
I love it, give us names, give us names.

00;11;05;21 - 00;11;07;29
Amanda Nicholson
You know, never!

00;11;07;29 - 00;11;11;08
Lynzie Nebel
Okay once this is off.

00;11;13;25 - 00;11;22;26
Lynzie Nebel
And so you know, there's a lot of camaraderie that can be built with women in the industry. Tell us a little bit about Ladies of Moldex3D.

00;11;23;02 - 00;11;26;22
Mercedes Landazuri
You have your most recent employer when you and I met in Korea.

00;11;26;29 - 00;11;42;17
Amanda Nicholson
So yeah, with Moldex3D, they actually have the largest group of women that I've ever worked with. And I want that to be a really interesting experience because, you know, most of the places I've worked have all been very male dominated. So I've never really been in a large group of women in a professional space ever.

00;11;43;10 - 00;11;59;08
Amanda Nicholson
So what I thought was like, wouldn't it be interesting if we all had a space where we could just talk together and like just share our ideas really without anyone else there and just see what happens? And I was absolutely blown away. First thing we did is started talking about our career goals. Where do we want to grow?

00;11;59;12 - 00;12;01;19
Amanda Nicholson
What problems are we having and how do we solve them.

00;12;01;29 - 00;12;06;14
Amanda Nicholson
Because we've got some people who've been there just a little while and some people have been there for years, you know.

00;12;06;14 - 00;12;06;24
Lynzie Nebel
Right.

00;12;06;24 - 00;12;17;09
Amanda Nicholson
So have they seen that same problem? Can they kind of walk them through it and then beyond that, what I found really fascinating is, you know, normally in companies you'll have certain silos that people work in.

00;12;17;09 - 00;12;32;21
Amanda Nicholson
And like I worked in the engineering group, so I talk to engineers all day long, but then they ask me to make YouTube videos. And so in that group of women, there was one in Taiwan who works in marketing, and she had some really great ideas on what makes a good YouTube video.

00;12;33;02 - 00;12;43;28
Amanda Nicholson
So she sent me ideas from, like, other industries that had, you know, music and humor incorporated and like really great intros and outros and like a good like call to action included and everything.

00;12;43;28 - 00;12;44;09
Lynzie Nebel
I love it. Perfect.

00;12;44;09 - 00;12;46;18
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah. I was like, I didn't know any of this stuff.

00;12;46;18 - 00;12;52;08
Lynzie Nebel
So now you need to transition into making Tiktoks for us. Now I'm done.

00;12;53;02 - 00;12;55;01
Amanda Nicholson
So I'm not the what? Yeah.

00;12;55;29 - 00;13;00;24
Mercedes Landazuri
Wait, I'm just registering because I saw it in your hands and it's just registering now.

00;13;00;24 - 00;13;02;08
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, I did not see that.

00;13;02;08 - 00;13;03;07
Amanda Nicholson
That technology gal.

00;13;04;01 - 00;13;07;24
Lynzie Nebel
But. But I know also a technology gal.

00;13;08;06 - 00;13;14;03
Amanda Nicholson
I'm a technology gal when it comes to work. I understand the benefits, but I don't like to be kind of tied to the Internet all the time. Right?

00;13;14;13 - 00;13;16;16
Lynzie Nebel
I need the Internet at all times.

00;13;17;06 - 00;13;21;17
Amanda Nicholson
So, yeah. I mean, I do have a tablet, it has wifi but I really don't use it much.

00;13;21;19 - 00;13;22;05
Lynzie Nebel
I feel a little bit better.

00;13;22;05 - 00;13;26;10
Amanda Nicholson
I use it for GPS all the time, because I have no sense of direction.

00;13;26;16 - 00;13;27;12
Mercedes Landazuri
Same, yeah.

00;13;27;15 - 00;13;30;15
Amanda Nicholson
I feel like that's definitely a woman thing.

00;13;30;15 - 00;13;38;10
Mercedes Landazuri
So what? So what? Tell us more about these videos. What? What were they what were you were you were educating the younger workforce or what was, what were the videos involving?

00;13;38;18 - 00;13;55;12
Amanda Nicholson
Well they started out just kind of as a sales tool, but then I started looking into the statistics of who's actually watching it. And I found that everyone was 25 to 35 years old. No one was really outside of that, really. And so I was kind of blown away by that because most of my customers are not in that age group.

00;13;55;29 - 00;13;59;07
Mercedes Landazuri
And they're out of college. So they're not trying to like use it.

00;13;59;07 - 00;14;16;22
Amanda Nicholson
Who is watching our videos? But I think it's a really interesting tool to use to kind of bring up young engineers to our level, right? Because a lot of young engineers, they're going to the Internet to learn how to do things. And I mean, I do the same thing. I use YouTube for everything from like learning how to do makeup to learning how to change my headlights.

00;14;16;22 - 00;14;17;21
Amanda Nicholson
I learned it all.

00;14;18;03 - 00;14;25;06
Lynzie Nebel
I have just started trying to garden and not kill things and I have used Tik Tok exclusively for it because.

00;14;25;07 - 00;14;33;26
Mercedes Landazuri
All her windows are north facing like it's like all the windows in north facing. It's like it's all day. But yeah.

00;14;33;27 - 00;15;01;22
Lynzie Nebel
You know, I think that's, I think that speaks a lot to like what the industry is dealing with or should be dealing with. It's not necessarily being dealt with. Like I think I think a lot of people are looking for 101 201 type stuff and then there's not a lot out there. You know, we were talking about training programs earlier and there are training programs, but it's like it's almost too high of a level for some people or what they need.

00;15;01;22 - 00;15;23;05
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah. Or barriers to entry with it. Right. Right. I mean, I feel really fortunate. I met you and Laura Meyers, other people here in the room where it's like I could coming into the industry as a new person and having questions and I felt like we're stupid since we were friends. I could text you when you answered them, but if I didn't know you right, if I didn't, if I didn't have the connections I made through SPE, which is another thing we needed to talk about how we met.

00;15;23;05 - 00;15;34;16
Mercedes Landazuri
But, you know, it's, it's so. We need to, to build other avenues to, to push out knowledge to, to people who can't necessarily attend a specific event or a class or especially.

00;15;34;16 - 00;15;50;20
Amanda Nicholson
And especially being YouTube. Like I make short videos so far that's what I've done, but I'm sure I'll branch out. But really short videos enable you to learn on your own schedule and just what you want, not, you know, a seminar on something, but just the information you're looking for, which is incredibly helpful.

00;15;50;20 - 00;15;51;23
Mercedes Landazuri
So how short are we talking?

00;15;52;04 - 00;15;55;04
Amanda Nicholson
I was normally making somewhere in the ballpark of five minute videos, and I.

00;15;55;04 - 00;16;05;27
Lynzie Nebel
I think that's good. That's perfect. Because, you know, as like me, I would if I wanted to learn something, I only have a few minutes, right? If I can't do it, if you say it's a 30 minute thing, but I

00;16;06;06 - 00;16;07;14
Amanda Nicholson
I don't have 30 minutes.

00;16;07;14 - 00;16;11;21
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah. Even if you tell me exactly where in the video, I'm never going to remember.

00;16;11;29 - 00;16;18;11
Mercedes Landazuri
Your cat has swished over your coffee, your child is jumping on, you know. So the from the couch to the wall.

00;16;18;11 - 00;16;19;19
Lynzie Nebel
You know, ambulances there.

00;16;19;20 - 00;16;21;27
Amanda Nicholson
I used to do somersaults down my dad's recliner.

00;16;23;22 - 00;16;27;06
Mercedes Landazuri
So. Okay, so you get every girl gymnast here, girl gymnasts here.

00;16;28;08 - 00;16;41;29
Lynzie Nebel
So, you know, we're kind of talking about that younger age bracket, you know, and a lot of what the buzzy word seems to be is sustainability. I know you have some passion about that. Can you tell us about any projects you're doing? Yeah.

00;16;41;29 - 00;17;03;13
Amanda Nicholson
So I feel like everyone's really interested in sustainability right now, but all I'm hearing is, you know, compostable materials, recycling like the same things over and over again. And what I'm more interested in is finding ways where we can sort of, you know, not only make things more sustainable, but also help companies' bottom lines. Unless it's profitable, it's not going to happen.

00;17;03;13 - 00;17;20;13
Amanda Nicholson
So things like making parts to where they can nest inside of each other, you can fit more of them in a truck. That way you're reducing your transportation cost and the environmental footprint of transportation, trying to make things in a modular way. So instead of every time you get rid of your cell phone, you just throw your cell phone away.

00;17;20;14 - 00;17;32;04
Amanda Nicholson
Right. But what if you could replace the battery, replace the screen, replace the processor or the camera instead of replacing the whole thing? And I mean, think of all parts that way as opposed to just, you know, just technology or just, you know.

00;17;32;05 - 00;17;34;22
Lynzie Nebel
Or even just having the same charger.

00;17;36;00 - 00;17;37;00
Amanda Nicholson
Oh, my gosh.

00;17;37;00 - 00;17;40;18
Lynzie Nebel
So I'm not 36 chargers deep, saying, why do none of them fit this one?

00;17;41;02 - 00;17;45;09
Mercedes Landazuri
And, you know, I only have one device fully charged at any time. That's it.

00;17;45;09 - 00;18;04;21
Lynzie Nebel
That makes sense to me. And so you know, we kind of hinted at the fact that, you know, we've met you through different aspects of SPE. You serve on a couple of boards. Any would tell us about the boards you serve on and kind of what they do and how you got involved? And who made you?

00;18;05;17 - 00;18;24;15
Amanda Nicholson
My boss at the Polymer Center suggested that I join the Injection Molding Division and so I reached out to Erik Foltz, who is my new boss as a few days ago. That's very fun. Very cool. So, yeah, then on the Injection Molding Division, I just started like right at the beginning of COVID, so I kind of had great timing.

00;18;24;23 - 00;18;28;23
Lynzie Nebel
No bad things. And very forward thinking.

00;18;28;27 - 00;18;37;28
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah, yeah. But I actually was lucky enough to meet some of the people on that board here this week, which is amazing for the first time. And so it's really good to have that human connection, yeah.

00;18;38;10 - 00;18;44;17
Mercedes Landazuri
Was Dave here? Adam? Where are all these? I don't see anybody.

00;18;45;13 - 00;18;58;20
Amanda Nicholson
The Sustainability Rocks virtual event as part of that. And we've got the in-person one, I believe, coming up. And then I am also part of the Recycling Division, which I'm very new to, but excited to sort of help with that newsletter.

00;18;58;20 - 00;19;00;03
Amanda Nicholson
And see what else we can do.

00;19;00;08 - 00;19;06;06
Lynzie Nebel
I feel like the Recycling Division is always trying to steal Injection Molding people. So now I'm starting to poach recycling people.

00;19;06;10 - 00;19;08;03
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh, yeah. Oh, you're coming for me.

00;19;08;03 - 00;19;11;27
Lynzie Nebel
I'm coming for you. Listen, I've already threatened to fight on the last episode. I'll do it again.

00;19;12;29 - 00;19;14;04
Mercedes Landazuri
I don't know if I will let you.

00;19;14;04 - 00;19;14;16
Amanda Nicholson
Let me back up first.

00;19;14;19 - 00;19;16;06
Lynzie Nebel
That's fair.

00;19;16;09 - 00;19;36;20
Mercedes Landazuri
I mean, I don't know if I told you this, but Glenn Beall, a mentor of mine, mentored many people in the industry here. When I joined the Chicago board, he said, You know, when he got involved, his mentor told him, Get involved in the newsletter because people are going to see your name every month. And it's a great way to meet people.

00;19;36;20 - 00;19;41;24
Mercedes Landazuri
And you you learn, you know, people will talk with you and share information and people will get used to seeing your name.

00;19;41;24 - 00;19;43;21
Lynzie Nebel
And I still don't want to do it.

00;19;43;21 - 00;19;44;08
Mercedes Landazuri
And you can be famous.

00;19;44;08 - 00;19;45;13
Lynzie Nebel
You can be famous like that.

00;19;45;13 - 00;19;51;10
Amanda Nicholson
I'm a little.bit Internet famous on LinkedIn. I feel like everyone seems to know me from there, you know.

00;19;51;10 - 00;19;51;19
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah.

00;19;51;23 - 00;19;53;27
Lynzie Nebel
So well yeah I feel like LinkedIn

00;19;53;27 - 00;19;54;22
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah.

00;19;55;01 - 00;19;56;15
Lynzie Nebel
And as I just discovered.

00;19;57;03 - 00;19;57;12
Lynzie Nebel
Thanks to your Internet.

00;19;57;12 - 00;20;00;06
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah, I don't know how we were a second connection of it. No.

00;20;01;09 - 00;20;07;16
Lynzie Nebel
All right. Well, we will. We're going to have you on a future episode. So that way you can tell us which division is better.

00;20;08;19 - 00;20;12;05
Mercedes Landazuri
But she's probably going to have joined three more boards by then. We're going to be behind her.

00;20;12;05 - 00;20;16;14
Lynzie Nebel
I know. And we can we can fight those people, then we can. Yes.

00;20;16;22 - 00;20;18;18
Mercedes Landazuri
Yes, we can be fast. We can fight.

00;20;18;18 - 00;20;21;03
Amanda Nicholson
Fight smarter, not harder.

00;20;21;03 - 00;20;22;14
Lynzie Nebel
Exactly, You get it.

00;20;24;06 - 00;20;35;27
Lynzie Nebel
All right. Well, Amanda, this has been awesome. You are such a cool person with such a cool background and we're so excited to be LinkedIn friends because friends connect.

00;20;35;27 - 00;20;36;12
Amanda Nicholson
We're only connections, not friends.

00;20;36;12 - 00;20;37;19
Mercedes Landazuri
Connections, connections.

00;20;37;19 - 00;20;38;06
Amanda Nicholson
Yeah. Sorry.

00;20;38;12 - 00;20;43;17
Mercedes Landazuri
Or we can be Instagram friends, right. Or YouTube friends. No, I don't know. Talking friends. Where do I make friends?

00;20;43;29 - 00;20;44;23
Amanda Nicholson
I think we ought to go back to Facebook.

00;20;44;23 - 00;20;46;22
Lynzie Nebel
In this day and age. How do I make a friend?

00;20;46;22 - 00;20;50;18
Mercedes Landazuri
I don't know, I have forgotten. That's going to go by years of like being locked in the house.

00;20;50;18 - 00;20;52;06
Lynzie Nebel
I just walked towards them with a beer. Oh.

00;20;52;06 - 00;20;53;19
Mercedes Landazuri
Where can we find your YouTube videos?

00;20;54;15 - 00;21;03;29
Amanda Nicholson
Well, the only ones I've done so far have been on Moldex3D's Northern America channel. So you can find about ten of my videos there now. But future videos will be on The Madison Group's YouTube channel.

00;21;04;02 - 00;21;06;00
Lynzie Nebel
All right. We're looking at stock, both of them.

00;21;06;00 - 00;21;18;22
Mercedes Landazuri
And if anything, if you publish any before we release this interview, which is going to be August, August. Then let us know. We'll put it in the show notes.

00;21;19;01 - 00;21;21;13
Lynzie Nebel
Alright, show notes. All right. Thank you so much.

00;21;21;13 - 00;21;21;28
Amanda Nicholson
Thank you.

00;21;22;28 - 00;21;51;12
Lynzie Nebel
Hey, thanks so much for listening to PlastChicks. New episodes appear on the first Friday of every month, so either follow or subscribe to get those new episodes ASAP. PlastChicks, The Voices of Resin, is a Plastics podcast sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. If you want to find out more about SPE, please visit 4, like the number, SPE dot org.

00;21;51;12 - 00;21;54;04
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh, PlastChicks.