WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Plastics Innovation & Resource Center recently hosted 21 industry professionals – representing 12 companies and seven states – for its annual Extrusion Seminar & Hands-On Workshop.
Sponsored by West Pharmaceutical Services Inc., a Penn College Corporate Tomorrow Maker, the three-day course covered extrusion principles and provided hands-on work with industry-standard equipment, including a single-screw extruder, twin-screw extruder, blown film line, injection molder, melt indexer and tensile tester.
“The hands-on lab experiences really helped put into perspective the material covered in the lecture,” said Keanan Bottorf, process engineer at West Pharmaceutical Services in Jersey Shore.
Extrusion experts Chris Rauwendaal, president of Rauwendaal Extrusion Engineering Inc. in Auburn, California, and Kirk M. Cantor, who recently retired as a professor of polymer technology at Penn College, led the workshop. Rauwendaal, a 2024 Plastics Hall of Fame inductee, presented course topics remotely in a multimedia format, and Cantor spearheaded the lab exercises.
Penn College polymer technology faculty Adam C. Barilla, Jose M. Perez, Vii J. Rice and Mark A. Sneidman assisted Cantor, along with PIRC staff Christopher J. Gagliano (director), Reagan G. McCoy (project manager) and Beth J. Zielewicz (program coordinator).
“Great workshop for quick, high-level hands-on learning!” enthused Paige Beert, R&D production manager for Renegade Plastics in Golden, Colorado.
“Being thrown right into it was the best part for me and my group,” added Brandon Nisewonger, engineering manager at Flex Technologies Inc. in Midvale, Ohio. “I feel more confident in my understanding of different processes and extrusion.”
The PIRC is one of the top plastics technology centers in the nation for research, development and education related to injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, rotational molding and thermoforming. To learn more, call 570-321-5533 or visit www.pct.edu/pirc.
Penn College offers a bachelor’s degree in polymer engineering technology and an associate degree in polymer technology. Both boast 100% overall job placement.
For information about those and other majors in the School of Engineering Technologies, call 570-327-4520 or visit www.pct.edu/et.
Penn College is a national leader in applied technology education. Visit www.pct.edu, email admissions@pct.edu or call toll-free 800-367-9222.