Behrend Talks: A Penn State Podcast
Join Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend, and guests for conversations about interesting things happening in the Erie community.
Behrend Talks: A Penn State Podcast
A $4.4 million investment in metal casting, with Dr. Paul Lynch
Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Dr. Paul C. Lynch, associate professor of industrial engineering, about a three-year, $4.4 million partnership with the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation. Originally recorded on July 26, 2024.
Hello everyone and welcome to the show. I'm Dr Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State B, and you are listening to Barron Talks. My guest today is one of our faculty members, d Paul Lynch. Paul is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering. Welcome to the show, Paul. Thanks for being here.
Ralph Ford:Well, I'm going to read a little bit about your background. I hope we make you blush a little bit with all the great things that you're doing, because you have recently landed a very significant grant. Paul is the lead researcher on a $4.4 million partnership with the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation. And when you put all those letters together, you get IACME, so we'll call it IACME, Again, institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing. And in partnership with the US Department of Defense, you are planning to we're going to go into a lot more detail create a workforce development programs, including manufacturing boot camps that will support the US metal casting and forging industries.
Ralph Ford:And a little bit about your background. You hold a bachelor's, a master's and a PhD, all in industrial engineering, all from Penn State University. Your research is on metal casting materials and manufacturing. You've won some really nice awards here at Penn State Behrend the Council of Fellows, excellence in Outreach Award, the Excellence in Teaching Award and the Guy Wilson Award for Excellence in Academic Advising. By the way, that's three out of the four major faculty awards we give here, so that's incredible. You're spending the summer actually. I know you're here on campus today, but you've been at Eglin Air Force Base participating in a research fellowship program your seventh research collaboration with the US Air Force. You know them well. Again, welcome, so you know really impressive background. So let's just start from the beginning. You were involved in material science, metal casting. Tell everyone what's this about. What interested you, you know, what is it that you like to focus on?
Paul Lynch:Yeah, so specifically again, thank you, Ralph for having me here today. This means a lot, this talk to me. So specifically, you know kind of question is what sparked my interest in this? I'm going to go back to how I grew up. So my brother and I are first-generation immediate family college graduates and we grew up in a hardworking blue-collar community in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, in Schuylkill County, Gordon, where we grew up. The borough where we grew up was approximately 700 people.
Paul Lynch:Our father was a mechanic, my mother is a beautician, so the local manufacturing plants they were truly the economic engine for the region, for these small coal towns. And although there were some more, I remember three main manufacturers growing up in our immediate area. One was a lumber manufacturer, one was an envelope manufacturer and we had a large local foundry, a metal caster, and really that foundry probably had over 400 employees. They were good, paying jobs with healthcare training for the employees, their family sustaining jobs and it seemed like somebody from every family in the region worked there and it truly was the anchor for the region and it really helped families realize the American dream and, interestingly, my father being a mechanic and having a mechanic shop, he actually would come home and he could actually tell you when the local foundry was doing really well and maybe when they weren't doing so well, just through his business, as you know, as a service business, as a mechanic. So the service businesses in our region everything from the pizza shops to the auto repair shops, to the car dealers, to dentists, Manufacturing drove that region and the service businesses. So over time, as employment numbers and these good paying jobs dwindled in our region, families started to struggle, service businesses started to disappear and society truly started to fall apart. We even, you know, started to have a lot of drug problems and I knew from a very young age how important manufacturing was to our economy, our society in general and our national defense. So growing up in that region and understanding that.
Paul Lynch:Secondly, when I was a student in industrial manufacturing engineering at Penn State, my eventual graduate school advisor, Dr Bob Voigt, was a metallurgist and he was a Foundry Educational Foundation key professor. So Penn State University Park is a certified Foundry Educational Foundation school. So we were exposed to design, manufacturing and finishing the actual castings right there in the lab on campus. So it truly captured my interest. And then, when I decided to go on to graduate school, I worked on a professor Voight who's a metallurgist, so my master's and PhD work was all metal manufacturing, material science, metallurgy and I really really worked on aluminum and steel. So that's really my background and how I got involved in, you know, metals and metal manufacturing.
Ralph Ford:I love hearing that background. I mean, it's like so many we hear, not only in Pennsylvania but Midwest, all throughout the country. By the way, my father worked in a manufacturing plant for 40 years of his life and so, although they managed to stay in business the whole time but so very familiar with these stories and interesting to hear how you know it's and I think this is what we're going to talk about. This is what drives you as well to continue to make sure that this industry and these opportunities remain, because they really do drive the economy in so many ways. So I appreciate you sharing that. So you saw that growing up a big part of your life. You go to Penn State. You see this. Did you always know you wanted to be an academic or did you think you wanted to go into industry? Industry what was the path to being a professor?
Paul Lynch:o really interesting. It's a great question, Ralph. I worked for a great company. Universal forest products actually had a location in my small little borough I grew up in, so you know I learned working for them out of my bachelor's degree. I learned a tremendous amount.
Paul Lynch:All right, as an undergraduate student I worked as an intern in their design department designing roof trusses while I was in college and then that was more of a civil engineering type internship and after I graduated I was hired full-time as a regional production engineer and I received top-notch training by the company and I was able to go across the United States and be exposed to all sorts of capital projects. And it was just. It was an excellent experience. But see, going back when I was a student at Penn State, I worked as a tutor and I also worked as an undergraduate teaching intern and I missed the teaching piece and I had an opportunity after, you know, about a year back full-time for Universal.
Paul Lynch:Again, I had worked for the company as I was in college as an intern, I had an opportunity to go back to college on a teaching assistantship which allowed me to teach manufacturing labs. I was able to conduct metals research and complete my classwork towards a master's degree, and Penn State funded that, and with that, I know I love the teaching piece of it and I love teaching the manufacturing lab. So, after completing that master's degree, some of the faculty spoke to me, sat down and spoke to me about going on for a PhD, and I eventually did it. So that was the pathway. Why, though? That was the pathway to getting a faculty position where I could do what I love teaching, advising, working on research, industry projects, basically taking that next generation, educating them, working directly with industry and pushing our manufacturing forward, and that's how I got there.
Ralph Ford:And it's really important. You wanted to do that, but also someone tapped you on the shoulder which was your faculty members and they said, hey, we see some promise there. So I love hearing that that part of the story too and, as the record shows, you've won some really important teaching awards and you have a great reputation as a very excellent uh teaching faculty member here. So let's talk a little bit about your path to Behrend, though, and I you know all full disclosure. I think I was director of the engineering school and we hired you, so remember some of those. But you came here. You ended up here at Behrend in 2015. And you know how did? How did that work? Why did you choose to come here? And you know what. What makes this the place for you?
Paul Lynch:Yeah, it's, it's a wow. We're going to start here. In the fall we're going to start year 10. Year 10, wow. So I could go on for a long time on this one.
Paul Lynch:So, as we know from talking today, I work in manufacturing and I'm really passionate about working directly with industry partners and getting our students working in manufacturing while they're in school, right to try to keep American manufacturing strong and help our local economies thrive. So really, I was always taught there's three ways for our local economy and our society to truly build wealth you make it, which is manufacture it, you mine it or you grow it. Erie and northwestern Pennsylvania is the make it. I was once told by one of my colleagues, and I believe this was actually on my interview. He said to me Paul, if it cannot be made in Erie, pennsylvania, it can't be made anywhere. And now, as I just said, I'm going on year 10. That is a fact. So for me, for the research I do on top of that, working directly with our metal manufacturers and my teaching and advising I mean Behrend allows me to bring everything together.
Ralph Ford:It's great to hear that it's a fit like that. Sorry I interrupted. Keep going.
Paul Lynch:Yeah, it allows me to bring together my research with the industry, with the students, and ultimately accomplish that goal that I talked about right Getting that next generation of workers into the industry, get the newest practices in the industry and introduce the technologies that we need to keep our manufacturing strong and society strong right in the Erie region.
Paul Lynch:So, in addition, I think one thing that's really important that I want to mention is the way Behrend works with industry. It's very unique for a Research I institution. The way Behrend works with industry. It's very unique for a Research 1 institution. It's truly, in my opinion, second to none, because the open lab allows us, allows me and my students, to work side by side with local industry and you know, just to give one example, the local Northwestern Pennsylvania American Founders Society chapter, along with a long list of other associations, a lot of industry partners. They have been nothing but supportive and helped us accomplish a great deal in nine years. You know, and we're going to continue to push that forward. But again, I can't stress enough how special Behrend is in the way, as a research one institution, that we work with industry and that is that is. That is huge.
Ralph Ford:You know really great observations. I didn't grow up in this area. I grew up in New York State. I spent my graduate work time in Arizona, worked for industry, for IBM, so a very different one.
Ralph Ford:But your point about the ability and the mindset of people in Western PA to make things, it's amazing to me.
Ralph Ford:It's part of the culture and you know I see kids come here and they go to the Innovation Commons. Whatever it is, their ability and thought process, it really is different than you see in a lot of places in the country and it's super, super important and the idea. You know, one of the things that you talked about was our connection with the outside world, and that's something that we never want to take for granted. But what's interesting to me is that you know you have such deep connections with places like American Foundry Society. You know I'm looking at my stats here. They support more than 30,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, generate 6.7 billion in economic input, and where I'm going with this is, you know you can see people saying, oh, metal casting forging sounds like an old technology, but let's talk about that because I don't think it is. So you know, what do your students think about this and how do you get them involved and talk about the importance of this industry and where it's going?
Paul Lynch:So is forging and casting? Is it on the radar for every student? No. However, as I said, our region, where we are, a large amount of our students have parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, right that have had a long and prosperous career in manufacturing. So manufacturing is not a dirty word to our students, nope. And also we have a significant number of first-generation college students here and I'm proud of that because I see a lot of myself in these students and they understand the value of hard work and they understand the importance of manufacturing to our local economy, society as a whole and our national security.
Paul Lynch:And kind of to end that piece of it about getting students involved, I'll never forget the first American Founders Society meeting that I attended here in Northwestern Pennsylvania and we sat down and you know we were talking about some of the things that you know manufacturing at one time, you know, did we decade ago, two decades ago maybe, have people at a different image of it? We sat down and I said you know what we need to do. Number one, we need to all work together and have a strong message. And number two, what I need from all of you is to offer our students an internship. I say give them an opportunity.
Paul Lynch:And now, after nine years of doing that, we have something very special moving forward. We have a pipeline of people going into the industry. We have students every month going out to the local Founders Society, dinners, meeting with the folks. We have our students competing at the national level. People know through the American Founders Society where Penn State Behrend is. We took home one of the grand prizes again this year at the Steel Founders Competition out in Milwaukee. Congratulations, but that took a lot of work, people working together. But what did it come back to? Giving students an opportunity.
Ralph Ford:And you personally know these companies and you get them to campus and talk about our career affairs. I mean, I've seen it in action. You help students and you help them connect to the companies.
Paul Lynch:Yeah, I mean that's huge to kind of keep that constant back and forth in terms of company calls. I get them in touch with career services, we work together, we get them in and we try to make sure we're placing our students. And that is huge. And the other thing that's very important is very good communication and transparency. For instance, every month at the local Northwestern Pennsylvania chapter meeting, shannon Sweeney and I, my colleague Shannon Sweeney and I, we're the education folks on the board they get a full report of what's going on in manufacturing and metal casting, you know, at Penn State Behrend, and that is very important.
Ralph Ford:So, Paul, I'd like to jump into you know some future-looking things and first of all, I'll start with some of the challenges that manufacturing industries are facing. You know, nearly one-fourth of the manufacturing workforce is 55 or older. By 2030, we estimate that there are going to be 2 million unfilled manufacturing jobs in the US. But you're working with this organization called IACME and we talked earlier about this very significant grant that you got $4.4 million and it's one of 17 manufacturing US institutes that plans to address this. So why don't you step us through? You know what's the challenge right now. Let's talk about your grant, what you're planning to do, what's your future plan here, with all that's going on with this very ambitious initiative?
Paul Lynch:I'm going to start with the challenge, so that you mentioned Ralph, between now and you know, 2028, our defense National Defense Industrial Base. You know they're saying they're going to need at least 122,000, you know additional shipbuilders, engineers, manufacturers and other DOD support roles. That's a lot of people, that's a lot. That's a lot of people. And you know, failure to meet these needs, you know, and to get our trades and our trade skill sets back up in this base metals industry really creates a vulnerability right for us. So it's extremely important. How are we going to address it? It's interesting as this past year I've spent a lot of time traveling across this country with IACME, speaking, sitting down with groups and even with our local groups here in Erie, and the thing that we decided was with IACME is we're going to train from K to gray. That's how we're going to do this. So, starting with K-12 activities, we're actually learning from research that as young as five years old kids are already thinking about what they like, what they might want to study in school and careers. So we've already, you know, launched the K k12 component. So we're starting there. As we go up, we're calling it a tiered curriculum and a tiered approach to this. So I just described k12. We have a level one which is really an introduction. All right that that is online component and it also is a hands-on boot camp component, but it's really introductory 18 and up, just really introducing folks all right to the basics.
Paul Lynch:After that and in development, that's where we are right now is level one. There's a level two and level three, and level two and level three is advanced right with targeted topics, company-specific and new technology integration. That will also have online and boot camp components. Eventually, and maybe the most important piece of it, is rebuilding both on the government side and the industrial side apprenticeships. So in Pennsylvania right now, along with our Penn State team, iacme and another party, third party Jobs for the Future, they are right now, as we're sitting here talking, they're already working directly with manufacturers right here in our region to jumpstart their apprenticeships and in our internship programs. So that is the tiered approach that we're taking to try to address this. Now the last part of your question. You know what? What's this, what's the whole piece going to kind of kind of look like and how do we get here? Well, as I said earlier about the listening sessions, we sat down with the local metal manufacturing leaders here at least three times.
Paul Lynch:The number one takeaway every single time was they need workforce development was number one right across the board every time. And that's what this grant that you described earlier, this metal grant, that's exactly what this grant slash contract is after. So where are we in kind of this tiered system of addressing this? Well, we've already launched the K-12 component. About 1,400 people came through the STEAM Fair on campus here in February. In the past month we've had five medal sessions, hands-on activities as part of College for Kids here on campus. About 100 students have already gone through it. Next week we'll wrap up with two more sessions, so we'll have done seven sessions this summer for K-12.
Paul Lynch:As we're working through the curriculum piece of that, and as soon as we get the metal casting, the melting capabilities here on campus, we'll begin offering a four-day metal level one boot camp for 18 and above here in northwestern Pennsylvania. Wow. So, and also the metal level, we're calling level one the basic online curriculum that's already launched. It launched July 15thth and anyone can sign up to take it and earn a credly badge for their completion. Um, it's about eight and a half hours of training. It's 13 modules. It's free to anyone. You go to metal for americaorg and they can sign up and already do the level one training and it'll take them right to Penn State Behrend training with IACME and all the work you're doing.
Paul Lynch:You got it, metalforamericaorg.
Ralph Ford:Metal For America. Yep Fell out four or the number four.
Paul Lynch:So Metal as in M-E-T-A-L-F-O-R-Americaorg.
Ralph Ford:Okay.
Paul Lynch:Yep.
Ralph Ford:Because I think some of our listeners who are going to hear this are in that industry and they're going to want to know where to go. Yep, and they can also always reach out to you. I hate to put the burden on you, but metalforamericaorg.
Paul Lynch:Yeah, so that's already level one. You know K-12 is already going on. Level one's already launched online our beta version of it, mm-hmm, and we're just about to offer the second beta level one boot camp in August at University Park. So now the last piece of that is level two and level three and they're coming down the pipeline but they're going to be more focused for specific company needs and advanced technologies. And, as I said to end here, iacme and with us, with Penn State and with Jobs for the Future, they're already working with local manufacturers to jumpstart these apprenticeship programs. The Department of Defense said you know we need to do this, we need to fly the airplane while we build it. So we've been working hard.
Ralph Ford:Well, a lot of really great things, and I want to go back and just ask a couple extra questions about what you said there. So when you talk about an apprentice program and then in the same breath you said we need an apprentice, an internship, so what is going to define an apprentice program versus an internship? So can you explain to our audience what you're thinking about in terms of this need for apprentices?
Paul Lynch:So if we go back, let's go back to maybe the 1970s. So the Department of Labor has a list of apprenticeships. Requirements which are at that point are called registered apprenticeships. So we have folks within IACME that are literally experts on apprenticeships that we're working with and also with jobs for the future, future and companies.
Paul Lynch:You know, when folks retired they had the apprentice right, they had people that were learning, that trade behind them and they were able to get through those cycles of retirement or job changes. And what happened over decades is we leaned out the workforce, kind of did away with the apprenticeship programs and all of a sudden all our baby boomers are retiring. Country did way too much offshoring and outsourcing of our skills and now we're at the point where what do we do? What do we do? So the apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships there's a certain time period that has to elapse, okay, that you have to basically complete a you know a number of of steps right to complete that apprenticeship, whether that's hands-on training, whether some of it maybe is at a local community, college, right or trade organization or or one of our camps here. But again, it depends again which apprenticeship it is, how long that apprenticeship is.
Ralph Ford:But you don't need a college degree. You can, you got it. It's based on experience, actually, and it's a very intentional. It doesn't take forever, but it takes some time to really develop that skill. It's a very kind of noble approach to developing the workforce too.
Paul Lynch:And there was really at one time when apprenticeships were strong, like I said, what really being able to, you know, have that next generation ready, right, there was really three entities involved the government, the Department of Labor has registered apprenticeships, you had the company itself and then you had our unions and they all were influential in those programs and we need to get back to that. We need to get back to really, you know, training folks and understanding that it's important to invest right in people and be ready for, you know, be ready for the future.
Ralph Ford:And what are the wages like here? So wages, wages I'm assuming wages are pretty good.
Paul Lynch:Yes, so so one of the things for a real. You know an exact number, but yeah, so so what I've learned from working with the. You know I'm going to call the experts with IACME. There are folks that that's what they've done their entire life. Typically, as folks go through and they're trained, their pay scale will go up, so that I don't know exact numbers. But obviously, as they progress and they get more skilled and they cross train, obviously that's usually a piece of it.
Ralph Ford:The other thing you mentioned was K-12, and I'm piqued by the you know you said on this campus this summer we've got some programs in metal casting going on. Can you take some young kids and having them actually cast metal and developing molds? What are you doing to keep them engaged for a week in one of these programs?
Paul Lynch:So what we've done is basically, for the first time, we've actually asked a few of the instructors can we have one of your sessions, because they all have five sessions, right? So, for instance, we've worked with a high school teacher here that's teaching chemistry 101. So we took one session, okay, and basically tied it to chemistry right, tied the metals to the periodic table, to chemistry, did a nice introduction, a couple of videos to capture the interest. These are six to eight year olds, you know. We showed them how their their little die cast car from the movie cars is made. We showed them how. They all told us we got here in a car, we got here in a van today, or we got here in a truck and we showed them the engine being manufactured right and said you wouldn't got here today without metal casting, right. They were asking all kinds of questions, right, and very excited after that.
Paul Lynch:What we actually allowed them to do was we actually we had someone working with either two or three of them at a time and every single one of those students got to hand make a sand mold. Wow, we melted the metal For safety. We just melted tin, allowed them to watch the pouring of it to shake out of the mold and all of them took home a cast part and then they also took home a brochure about our initiative at Behrend and our initiative with metal for their parents and for their family and they were very happy. So what we've done for the and we're going to do one more next week for 10 to 14 year olds what we've also done is we've integrated additive manufacturing. So next week's camp we're going to be 10 to 14 year olds and we're going to integrate. They're going to get to do the hands-on casting but also integrate additive manufacturing into it.
Ralph Ford:Wow, that is you know. That of manufacturing into it Wow, that is you know. That's awesome to hear, because most people have no idea how something like that is made. I know I would never have had a sense of it until later in life. So to see that at an early age experience it really great. Now I want to hit. You know we've got a few more minutes left in our discussion here. A few things that I wanted to still talk about is one I'd like you to talk a little bit about your research and just tell me a little bit. You know so as a faculty member you do teaching, research and service broadly. You've talked a bit about your teaching and your passion there, like what are the?
Paul Lynch:problems you're looking at and how would you explain that to a layman? So primarily I work in industrial manufacturing engineering, also a faculty member in our master of manufacturing management program, and I explained already today my kind of background and having worked under Professor Boyd at University of Clark and his metallurgical background, and so most of the work that we're doing is metal manufacturing. We are big on physical metallurgy. So you know we actually you know, from design all the way through the end, testing and looking at the metallurgical structure of the materials that were produced. That is a big focus of what we do. And one of the things I think that has happened in the past couple of decades is we've relied heavily on simulating and simulations and when we're talking with our local companies, it's not uncommon once a week that I get a call from a local company hey Paul, do you have an idea why this might be happening? Or they send me a sample in the mail, right. And and one of the things I found over time is simulation is like going to a baseball game the simulation will get you in the stadium, right, but it's the actual physical metallurgy and understanding the structure and understanding the process that'll get you to your seat and, and I think there was for years. I think there was a big gap there and I think at Behrend, here with the labs that we've had, we've developed a really nice materials lab right in the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center, and so we spend a lot of time doing the physical metallurgy piece and working directly with manufacturers.
Paul Lynch:So right now, to kind of fully answer your question, we have three larger funded efforts. One is with one of our local companies and we are looking at everything from efficiencies, material selection, characterization and the physical metallurgy piece on that side, all the way over to studying emissions. Can I put a dollar on this? But also can I put also emissions factor on it? So that's one project.
Paul Lynch:Another project we're working on we're trying to develop Across the world. We have a deficit of scrap material and we're in a battle across the world for certain elements. Can we develop materials at a lower cost, mainly steels at a lower cost that have high strength, hardness, ductility and toughness? So we've been working on that and trying to also make sure that we can get the elements we need and develop the chemistries for it and the processes. That's a second project that we're working on right now. The last one here, the large one we talked about and develop the chemistries for it and the processes. That's a second project that we're working on right now. The last one here, the large one we talked about, is really the workforce development, the metal effort that we talked about today and, as I said, the listening sessions with our local manufacturers.
Ralph Ford:They said we need this. Well, that is a significant amount of work and body of research, so let's take that to the next level. We've got this project here on campus, known as Project Resolve that's well known in the community and we're working on the creation of a new center for manufacturing competitiveness and, not surprising, you're in the midst of all of those efforts. So I want to talk a bit about the project. But really, specifically, what is the Center for Manufacturing Competitiveness and what do you see happening there? What are you trying to make happen in the center?
Paul Lynch:We've been, as you know, ralph, we've been working for a long time right on CMC Center for Manufacturing Competitiveness and I kind of want to dovetail that thought into what we're doing with metal, this project metal. That's at the heart of our project resolve and within project resolve, that's where our Center for Manufacturing Competitiveness is planned to house a new additive manufacturing and metal casting facility, along with a battery test facility. We're talking about an AR and VR lab, virtual reality and an advanced polymer recycling and characterization center here on campus and specifically looking at the additive manufacturing and metal casting facility. Looking at the additive manufacturing and metal casting facility, the ultimate goal of that facility, as we sat down over years and again, this is industry driven. We sat down in listening sessions with local industry, you know, and said, okay, what do you need? And outside of workforce development, it was that next generation of technology to make them competitive. So really I think it's kind of three pieces. We want to position our Pennsylvania metal industry to be competitive, as I just said, both nationally and internationally and really keep jobs right here in Erie, within our region and also maintaining our environmental quality right. That's a big piece of it. So these specific goals and objectives are really going to be met, like I said, with three deliverables. I would say One is that development of the advanced additive and metal casting lab here at Behrend to be used as a sandbox with our local metal industry To work on projects that allow the manufacturers to train on the new technology, adopt these new technologies into their businesses.
Paul Lynch:Why is that important? Not only are you adopting and training, but if you look at the breakdown of the forging and metal casting industry in the United States, you're talking 80% small to medium-sized businesses. A lot of these folks don't have the capital money sitting around and go out and spend millions of dollars unless it's a proven technology. Well, the proven piece comes from working in our sandbox and then they go out and adopt it and they purchase their own equipment. Right, and they're training.
Paul Lynch:That's huge, that's huge. Secondly, it's that dissemination of that new knowledge to the metal casting community and our forging industry through our trade organizations and our workforce training organizations. And then what are we doing on campus? Every day, we're training that next generation of our engineers and our technicians to work in the Pennsylvania metal industry, both through training within the Penn State Behrend Metal Program and also with having industry-specific job fairs and student nights to bring the industry in, to offer internships with their companies, offer co-ops and offer full-time positions. So this thrust in the areas of education and research and manufacturing within this Center for Manufacturing Competitiveness, that's right at the heart of overall project resolve, it's right at the heart of the metal program and, most importantly, it's right at the heart of what our region is asking from us.
Ralph Ford:Well said and I think you know you hit on so many important points there and you mentioned as well sustainability and I don't think you know, I don't think that that's fully understood, that these gains. By the way, I'll just add a little bit here. A lot of people ask me about greenhouse gases and sustainability and I don't think most people realize. In the United States, actually, the greenhouse gas emissions have actually been going down and per capita, they've actually been going down since the 1970s. Now this is a significant problem that we need to address. But my point is you're addressing it in the center too, by helping them adopt new technologies that are better for the environment, reduce energy, fewer emissions. But in the end we we all know whether it's an electric car or whatever the vehicle is we're going to cast and forge some parts for that and it requires energy. And my point there is it's important sometimes seemingly slow, but it's not that slow, that work is actually really happening. So I love to hear that.
Paul Lynch:Yep, and interestingly, as I kind of ended on the research piece, in the past couple of years, as I said, we undertook you know a project and basically you know every every Friday morning I have my you know materials and manufacturing group research meeting. You go back from the past two years kind of. Every deliverable we worked on a week before it kind of was okay, tell me cost and right aside of it, I want to know emissions, because all the way through the supply chain when you look at steel, especially today, there's questionnaires going through that supply chain.
Ralph Ford:People are being forced to answer those questions about their facilities. Oh yeah, well, we have had a wonderful conversation. We're almost to the end here, but is there anything you'd like to add? I'll give you the last word. Any anything you'd like to talk about, Paul.
Paul Lynch:Kind of. I mean, first of all, I want to thank you for allowing me to come here and talk today, but really what I want to do, okay, at the end here, is just thank all our partners. All right, Whenever I go to a meeting, I don't like to use the word I? It. Whenever I go to a meeting, I don't like to use the word I it's we and I just spoke about this at a local fundraiser. I said what we've accomplished in nine years and we're going to continue to do. We all did together.
Paul Lynch:It took bringing together the local manufacturers, offering the internships, offering the co-ops. They put an endowment fund together here. They put money together and put a scholarship endowment fund together for our students working in industry. If we call and we need senior projects or we need some consumables in our labs, they're helping. I just want to thank everybody Northwestern Pennsylvania AFS chapter, the Foundry Educational Foundation, you know, Pennsylvania University, Casman Mills Advisory Committee Committee and many, many more companies. We could not do this alone, but we are working with these folks day in and day out and they're telling us what we need and we're delivering. I want to see it continue forward. I just want to thank everybody in this region for all the help.
Ralph Ford:I'd like to thank you as well for your role in this, as well as all of those who are supporting us. This has been a great conversation. I'm Dr Ralph Ford. You have been listening to Behrend Talks, and my guest today has been Dr Paul Lynch, associate Professor of Industrial Engineering here at Penn State Behrend, leading a lot of initiatives in metal casting, and Paul's easy to reach. He's here on campus, so I think if listeners have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. Again, thanks for joining us, Paul. Thank you.