Packaging Etcetera Podcast
The Packaging Etcetera Podcast is by and large a forum for discussing events and trends in the packaging industry. While packaging is the focus, Etcetera is a reference to an occasional wild card - maybe something serious and career focused, or something scientific or maybe even something fun and playful.
Packaging Etcetera Podcast
Inventing Independence: The Snapslide Story
What happens when someone refuses to accept "that's how it's always been done" as an answer? Rocky Batzel's story proves that persistence against overwhelming skepticism can transform lives.
When Rocky's grandmother complained about struggling to open her prescription bottles, he noticed a problem hiding in plain sight: medication packaging hadn't meaningfully changed since 1974. Traditional child-resistant closures require two hands, significant strength, and dexterity – making them nearly impossible for millions of Americans to use independently. As an ex-medical student with no background in manufacturing or packaging, Rocky seemed unlikely to disrupt this established industry.
The solution Rocky developed – Snapslide – replaces twisting motions with an intuitive sliding mechanism that requires just one hand to operate. The cap never detaches, eliminating dropped or misplaced caps while providing an audible "snap" that confirms secure closure. By removing threads entirely, the design reduces plastic usage by 27% while maintaining full child-resistance.
Rocky's journey exemplifies the realities of innovation: multiple iterations, consumer testing with different populations, and unexpected setbacks (including a factory fire that destroyed his first $50,000 mold). Rather than giving up, he refined his design to accommodate industry constraints – where pennies matter more than dollars, and change is resisted unless absolutely necessary.
At disability expos, users frequently describe Snapslide as "life-changing," restoring independence to people who previously required assistance for the simple act of accessing medication. This human impact earned Snapslide recognition from the Plastics Industry Association with their Sustainability Award – the first for a non-publicly traded company in five years.
Subscribe to hear more stories about packaging innovations that solve real human problems and the perseverance required to bring them to market in an industry resistant to change.
loger for over-the-counter and prescription meds Rocky Batesall welcome.
Speaker 2:Hey, hey, matt, good to be here, man, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate you joining us today. What I always start with if you don't mind, please just kind of take a minute to introduce yourself to everybody, so we kind of know who you are.
Speaker 2:Sure thing, as Matt said, I'm Rocky Batesel. I'm the inventor and CEO of Snapslide. I was pretty much a medical student, completely different course of where I'm at now. I left medical school and started to invent things. I didn't know anything about packaging or child-resistant closures and my mom came to me one day and was like Brock, if you want to think of something, think of something for these prescription vials. Graham can't open them. I have to open them all the time for her, and then she leaves the cap on them and the pills fall all over the place, or the grandkids come over and she gets paranoid, puts them back on and the whole process starts all over again. I thought that was pretty interesting. So I started to do some research and realized the current child-resistant closures haven't really changed much in over half a century since like 1974.
Speaker 2:That's when child-resistant closures first arrived and there's always some sort of two-part mechanism. You've got to be two parts, but there's always some torque dependent. You need two hands. It takes a lot of force, some dexterity, and my gram was struggling with it. So I started asking other people and my gram wasn't the only one. So I started to think if we could think of a simple mechanical operation that still requires two parts but requires less force and dexterity. I could be on to something one day just popped into my head snap slide instead of something that turns, and you got to press it and turn it a sliding mechanism. So that's kind of the germ of the idea came to my head and then it was. Then it was off to the races with all the other stuff, just learning every step of the way. It's been quite the journey, man, I tell you. As you know, packaging is tough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and having gone through my fair share of child-resistant, senior-friendly closure testing, I've seen the process for what I would say is relatively simple package design in comparison to what you're talking about. So I can only imagine the level of rigor you had to go through to get this design qualified and approved and out there on the market. So kudos to you for that.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, matt, and rigor is the perfect word to describe it. You first have an idea, you have it in your head, and then you don't because, like I said, my parents weren't in the manufacturing realm or the business world. So I kind of just had this idea, I didn't know where to turn. So when you have an idea, you don't, kind of you can't see the full road ahead. So developing it, you know, getting it just right. When you have something new, there's no uh blueprint that you could go on. You know it's like what are the tolerances that could have it do this? The force is required to make a child resistant, but but not too hard, that you know that gram can't open it. So fine, tuning that in. I probably went through, I'd say, four or five molds until we got it right. So it was a, it was a journey, it's been a journey.
Speaker 1:And I imagine each iteration included a fair amount of consumer testing.
Speaker 2:A lot of consumer testing, yep, a lot of consumer testing and mold process analysis. Like, what tolerances could we hit? Because, when it comes to packaging, you can't have it more complicated, you can't have it more expensive consumer product. You could kind of make it fancier and kind of charge a little bit more. We're talking about dollars, when packaging we're talking about pennies, so you can't really got to keep it simple, and that's where that's where it's tough. You can't add to, you can't add anything, so needs to still maintain the same cycle time you know off the mold. It can't add to, you can't add anything, so it needs to still maintain the same cycle time you know off the mold it can't be too much more.
Speaker 2:You can't add other units that require a separate component that you need to assemble, you know. So it needs to still be simple and functional, but yet different at the same time. So those were the three kind of things we had the check boxes we had to check.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't want to solve one problem and create one or two other problems. You want to just kind of solve a problem and net, net, make a positive impact, make positive change on the overall process.
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah, if you, you, yeah, if you, uh, you solve one problem. If you add another, especially in the packaging world, you're tough. Innovating something is a hard enough. You know the resistance to change and kind of disrupting the status quo is it's a hard thing to do to have an industry and people shift from what they're used to. So the more, the more negatives you could take away, the better chance you'll have. So it's always, it's always important to uh try to maintain the as close as the norm as you could get by being different at the same time.
Speaker 2:And my first iteration was a cube design, because a cube, the packing density and we've done studies on this, it's amazing, a cube design, the packing density. When I say packing density, the more units you could get into a box. If you had cylinders you get X amount and if you had cubes you get 2 amount and if you had cubes you get 2X. You know much better like 20% improvement a lot of the time and I'm like, oh, that's, the shipping efficiencies are going to be so much better. The cube has to be the way to go.
Speaker 2:But I got so much resistance from the cube design because there's going to be label changes. Resistance from the cube design because there's going to be label changes, you know. So the industry was kind of pushing back a lot on the cube, even though they'd save a ton on the back end. They didn't. They didn't like the cube. So I went right back, go back to the drawing board, took another year of development to develop it for a cylindrical application. So it's just an example of don't go too much in the innovative direction. Try to stay as close to kind of mainstreaming what the industry is used to. Just to get out there at first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would imagine, you know, I would liken the process to, and from the outside looking in, of course, but I would liken the process to, you know, outside looking in, of course, but I would like, in the process, to, uh, you know a sculptor, uh, rather than adding clay, starting with a basic design and then removing and trimming to get to that final product, um, I would imagine that inventing is is probably following a similar arc very similar.
Speaker 2:It's that creative, that creative ability. You know that creative landscape. You know you have your block of clay and you're chiseling it out and you have something and you go to the consumers, you go to the industry and they're like no, or I like this, but not this, and you got to go back, sculpt it a little bit more. You know, and it's trial and error, you know you call they call it failures, but it's more like a learning process. You're not going to get it right the first time back to the drawing board. You're not going to get it right the second time, but you're a little bit closer, maybe not the third time or the fourth, but eventually you'll have it. It's just that's. It's more about like tenacity, just not giving up. Just keep going back to the drawing board, take what you learn from the failures and get it right and you'll eventually get there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. So what would you say are your target demographics for the Snapslide design?
Speaker 2:Target demographics. So from the consumer, everyone, really our target demographics, our customers, are pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies. That's who we're selling to, but the consumers are the ones that are interacting with the package. So when it comes to the consumers, I kind of break it down into three demographics. The primary demographics are people that only have use of one limb. Whether you're an amputee or you have hemiparesis after a stroke, neuromuscular conditions, spinal cord injuries, you name it.
Speaker 2:There are about 12 million people out there in the US alone that have limited to no movement or ability, the only ability to use one arm. So operating traditional child-resistant closures are virtually impossible for those people. So those are our primary demographics. Secondary are those that have both hands but have limited dexterity and limited strength. Arthritis is a big one. About 60 million people out there suffer from arthritis. So that's our secondary. And then tertiary is everyone else Convenience. You know the cap doesn't remove, so you're not juggling three different things a pillow, cap and a bottle, you know. So I wanted to hit something on each one of those demographics. I wanted to make a package that you know is convenient for all but life-changing for many. You know is convenient for all but life-changing for many, and life-changing, being the ones with one arm have the ability not to access their medication and a lot of the time not having to depend on someone else to open it for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the irony of having arthritis and not being able to open your pill bottle to take your arthritis medication.
Speaker 2:So yeah it makes a lot of sense. We take it for granted, but I was at a several months ago. I was at abilities expo, which is one of the largest trade shows for the disabled, and we had a booth and our booth was swarmed by people and it was so touching it was probably the most uh moving time I've had at SnapSlide being able to show, you know, give bottles to uh people with limited to no movement in one of their limbs, and the term independence kept coming up that they're uh, they're no longer able to depend on somebody else. They could do just a task of daily living that you and I would take for granted. They're able to do now without depending on their caregiver or their mom or dad to open their prescriptions or their medications for them, and that was something that was very touching for me. When I saw that, I didn't think about the independence thing, but that term kept coming up.
Speaker 1:That makes perfect sense, I would think you know. Dignity would be another word. I would assume some people would feel not very dignified knowing that they have to ask for help or rely on someone else for something as basic as taking a pill. So, um, 100% of people their, their dignity back.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. You want to be able to do things on their own. You know they don't. People don't want to depend on others to have to do do things for them. And something as common as taking a medication, you know.
Speaker 1:Common as taking a medication. You know, give them the power to do it themselves. You know, Now, as far as materials of construction are concerned, are you using, you know, traditional petrochemical plastics for the Snapslide design? Are you using, or have you given any thought to, you know, green plastics or biomaterials, for, you know, kind of, you know, aligned with these sustainability initiatives that are out there?
Speaker 2:Huge, huge topic in the industry right now. We designed Snapslide. I always had this in my head. We designed Snapscye to be material agnostic, meaning molded in a way that we could use virtually any type of material. What we're using now is standard polypropylene, fully recyclable, and that's what the industry generally uses for prescription vials 100% recyclable polypropylene. We could use other biodegradable resins. When it comes to the pharmaceutical industry, it's not fully there yet. There's not a lot of FDA-grade biodegradable resins out there. Pharma is kind of one of the last ones to shift gears and get into that. When there is a biodegradable resin out there that's FDA grade, that checks all the boxes, we're designed to be able to use that resin.
Speaker 2:Okay, our major thing in the sustainability side is we use less plastic, and that's a cool thing. And thing I'm proud of is, uh, designing it in a way that it uses less of. Whether it's recyclable material or biodegradable material, we're using less of it. So we were able to design it to remove the need for threads, which is pretty cool. If you could imagine, if you're turning on something, you need threads, and each one of those threads is a layer on both the cap and the bottle, right? So we don't need to worry about turning anything anymore. So we just replace those threads with the bead that snaps on, which decreased the profile of the neck and the closure significantly and removes about 27% of plastic. It's wild.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so the snap and snap slide refers to the ability for the cap. It's a snap-on, it's a friction-fit cap, yep, yep, okay. Yeah, I was going to ask if you wouldn't mind. You know, obviously this is an audio only recording. So, uh, anybody out there listening is they're kind of using their imagination, and so what exactly we're talking about? Um, you know, short of going onto the website snapslidecom, by the way, um, if you wouldn't mind, just kind of very quickly, 30,000 foot view how this actually works, just so that people can kind of understand and visualize what we're discussing here.
Speaker 2:So if you imagine your traditional prescription vial, you got your orange, amber colored bottle that side looks pretty much the same and you have your white cap. Well, instead of a cap that you have to push and turn off, well, instead of a cap that you have to push and turn off, imagine there's kind of a little button on one side where you put your thumb and you press this lever and you just slide it out. It slides open. You dump your meds out, the cap never comes off, so you don't have to worry about dropping it. So many people I heard like drop their cap, they lose their cap. So I wanted to make it so. Once everything's together, it's still one unit it doesn't remove and you just close it back and it snaps that audible assurance to know that it's locked back up.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Did you hear the snap?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I heard it yeah, all right, that was another big thing. That snap, um. During my research I found that child resistance, um, most kids get into the package not because they breach the child resistance mechanisms but because parents, whether they don't get it on the threads properly or they just put the cap on because they don't want to go back through the cr, like my grandmother used to. That's how kids get into most of their meds. It's not because they breached the cr closure, because they just are able to get through the cap because the CR closure wasn't engaged properly. So that was one thing I noticed and wanted to implement that kind of sound, that auditorial assurance to know that when you hear that snap, you know it's closed, no confusion.
Speaker 1:That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:So many things you find out when you're just talking to people and you're going down this journey. You learn so many different things that you weren't originally thinking of. And then you learn them. You're like oh, I got to, that's, it makes sense, I got to implement that.
Speaker 1:So now, where do you see? I mean obviously you know best case scenario, you know five to 10 years from now this is Snapslide is in. You know every pharmacy around the globe, but I mean you know realistically what are the next five to 10 years look like for you?
Speaker 2:Well, that's one one step Snapslide in every pharmacy around the globe. But I like Snapslide to be a global leader in child-resistant packaging, kind of disrupting the status quo and pioneering a movement in accessibility and sustainability within the packaging. World hasn't evolved much over the course of time, you know it's. It's amazing we still, if you uh look at the pill bottles elvis had, it's pretty much identical to the ones we're currently using. You know everything else has changed. You know evolved, but packaging really hasn't. There hasn't been a big leap forward. And then, because it needs to be maintained simplicity, you know cost need to stay low. But that's where that's where I want to snap side, to be, to actually take a big step forward in terms of child resistance mechanics and, uh, pioneer movement for accessibility and sustainability within packaging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, now that you mentioned it, thinking back, I don't recall ever, you know, my my entire life. I don't recall ever seeing any, any real innovation in this area. So this or this, you know, this, you know, looks to be like the first big you know leap when it comes to innovation. For, you know, I guess, pharmacy issued oral solid dose prescription medication.
Speaker 2:For sure, and it is. It's wild. Like I said, it's one of the few industries that hasn't really evolved and innovated. Small things like design improvements. There's been some cool innovations within packaging, but nothing really in terms of the mechanical operation, on how you use a child resistance enclosure and especially, given the ability to use one hand, something that was been missed, the. The innovation is one thing, but the discovery, I think, is even more like. Oh my god, look at this huge population of people that only have one arm. You know like how do they open packages? You know you gotta accommodate them, gotta give them something that they could use independently, and that's that's been my key focus is getting them something they that they could use.
Speaker 1:And it's nice to think that someone else out there that may listen to this podcast or happens upon your website or has a relative that ends up using Snapslide at some point in the future, uh, they, their thought bubble goes off and and who knows where that might lead. Uh, for other innovations in other areas and other industries, um, you know, relative to packaging, or relative to, you know, product delivery, or anything really for that matter. So it's nice to see how sometimes you know one idea like this can snowball into to multiple other ideas and and you know, other people can can jump on board with that.
Speaker 2:So be curious to see how things develop yep 100.
Speaker 1:It's exciting so earlier you mentioned uh, you went through multiple mold iterations. I understand you had an interesting experience with your first mold.
Speaker 2:I did my first mold, my first molder. It's a long story, I won't get into it too much, but I had a mold at this one shop. It's my first mold my first. Now, molds are expensive. They're not cheap. I got my first capital build a mold for my dad and I spent it on this first mold.
Speaker 2:Everybody was telling me that there's no way that this could be molded. You know you can't mold this. It looks good on a 3D print but molding it'll never work. You won't be able to get a snap sound. It won't be able to do this. So I had to prove that it could be molded. So my first mold I got my dad uh, it was 50 grand. He gave me 50 grand to buy this mold. So built the mold and it worked right. I got my first molded parts off it. They were, they were working, they. I proved moldability. I was excited. Maybe two months after I had this mold we were molding parts off it for show and tell purposes and the tool shop that was running these parts. It caught on fire and burnt down and my mold was inside. Now I didn't have insurance on the mold. I I wasn't betting on it. Go and catch it on fire but mold shot burnt down. I lost my first mold, so now I'm out of mold and I'm off 50 grand. So I'm like starting from zero again yeah, yeah, not something you can really anticipate
Speaker 2:no, no, by 50 grand to spend. And that was it. I wasn't anticipating anything else. I was really wet behind the ears, I didn't. You know, I was just starting. But I did have some molded samples and I was able to prove moldability. So I had some parts left over and I was able to check one of those boxes. From all the naysayers I was like, oh, I can't be molded. I was able to check that off. So that helped just having a couple of those molded parts. So when people did say, oh, it can't be molded, you prove moldability, I could say yes, so that helped me get to the next level, to raise some capital to build Mole 2, which didn't burn down but it wasn't perfect Then Mole 3, mole 4 until we honed it in.
Speaker 2:And then the child-resistant testing. Finally get that. And then the consumer testing arthritis panels and then the consumer testing arthritic arthritis panels. We did multiple consumer tests with you know able bodies and individuals, their preferences, and then also people with arthritis. See what their preferences are in terms of forces, then hone those preferences in and then went to the Child Resistance Center and found out what would pass through child resistance and then modified accordingly to try to hit all the demographics the able-bodied people what they like, what's functional for arthritic, and then what kids can't open, to hone in on the optimal forces required.
Speaker 1:So, despite your, your initial investment quite literally going up in flames it was, it was still a success. You were able to, uh, gain proof of concept, proof of principle, um, and functionally, um, you know, to your point, proving the naysayers wrong. That's got to feel good, and you know, from there off and running. So again, kudos to you for that, congratulations.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. Like I said, the X factor is tenacity. Can't give up. You know you have something, something you keep on going unless somebody comes in, like you're always gonna get the people that say, no, it can't be done. But unless they can prove it to you with, like a legitimate reason that makes sense to you, then you gotta, you gotta find out for yourself. You know, and although people were telling me it can't be done, they weren't giving me any real answers as to why, like it can't be molded, like why, well, there's this undercut here and polypropylene is a softer material so it won't be able to snap, and it just didn't make sense to me. Yeah, so I'm like this is the 21st century. We put a man in the moon. You know we're.
Speaker 2:You've done a lot yeah, a lot you know, and telling me we can't mold these two pieces of plastic together to get them to work didn't make sense yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know the the old, no, it can't be done, only hardening. You know your resolve to prove them wrong. You know, I spent a significant portion of my career in a continuous improvement function and one of my favorite things to hear when I was interviewing people specifically in a production environment was well, this is the way it's always been done, and to me that was a giant red flag to say dig deeper right here. Huge reference, yeah, because this I was like okay, I'm going to find some low-hanging fruit. You know the adapt or die mentality.
Speaker 1:Now there were situations where I would start to dig deeper and realize, no, you know what this really still is the optimal way to do it. But I would say 70% of the time, if not more, probably more, digging deeper, I would find, hey, you know what this is based off of, either archaic thinking or the limitations of technology at the time. And oh, by the way, there's technological advances that are going to allow you to do this much faster, much more efficiently, with less waste, safer and in a more regulatory compliant way. You know, whatever the driving force might be for that type of project, but me, I always liked when I would hear somebody say no well, this is the way it's always been done. We're good that resistance to change, because that was my giant red flag to say, yeah, you need to look deeper right here.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's not a reason, that's an excuse. Yeah, that's the way it's always been done. Yeah, that's an excuse. Yeah, you know that's the way it's always been done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the excuse statement for why you don't want to dig deeper so now you mentioned, um, you know, use the word tenacity and um, and and not giving up prior to our, our recording today, um, when I had asked a question about you know if there were songs or or movies or pop culture that would help describe. You know your arc. You mentioned and it's a very polarizing movie for my Notre Dame-hating friends and family, but you mentioned the movie Rudy, which is a personal favorite of mine. So just kind of, if you wouldn't mind walk through that a little bit, you know why you feel that that movie kind of resonates with you great movie.
Speaker 2:Love the movie. It's that underdog story. You know the when I left medical school nobody gave me a chance to even come close. You know I didn't have, I didn't come from, a huge amount of money, my parents didn't own like a big manufacturing facility. You know nobody invented anything, you know. So I was just kind of I don't know what I was doing. You know I was, I was rudy, you know, coming into this industry that you know nobody knew me, and just taking beatings along the way. You know everybody counted rudy out and everybody counted me out. So it's similar. And rudy never gave up. He just kept on grinding, working hard and uh, believed himself that he'd do it and he proved everybody wrong and that's kind of kind of see a lot in myself there, so, and it was just a classic, great movie yeah, no, I know my dad's favorite.
Speaker 2:It's one of my dad's favorite movies, and every time he sees it he's probably seen it like a hundred times I'll be watching it with him. They'll still be crying at the end of the movie, and my dad's my dad's a tough guy too, but it rudy gets it. How can you not?
Speaker 1:how can you not? I mean it really is. They definitely hollywoodified the story, if you will, and and you know if if you start to really peel back the onion on the? I mean, at the end of the day it's still a movie. Granted, it's based on a true story, but it's not 100% factual and I think we have to be honest. If you ever go back and watch the YouTube videos, I'm pretty sure he was offsides on that play. There's no call, but that's fine. It still was a great ending.
Speaker 1:But there's an interesting story about that movie that people don't really pay attention to and he's not at all featured in the film. But Joe Montana was on that Notre Dame team. He was not the starting quarterback yet and he was interviewed about that moment when Rudy got carried off the field at Notre Dame Stadium. And according to his response in this interview, that wasn't done in the triumphant fashion that it's shown in the movie. It was kind of done as a mockery, a mockery of the overall process, and so he kind of downplays the whole Rudy story. But take all that away from it. It's still a great movie. I agree wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2:Very great movie nonetheless.
Speaker 1:So my father grew up in Western Pennsylvania and you know, in his time there really wasn't much. As far as you know, you don't have streaming services, you don't have access to. You know every game across the country, so you know he listened to a lot of the Notre Dame games growing up. So he grew up a Notre Dame fan, which meant I grew up a Notre Dame fan and now my children have to grow up with Notre Dame fans. Right A passage, right? So, um, for my father's 70th birthday, uh, which was more than a few years ago, I bought tickets to take him out to Notre Dame stadium for a game and, uh, it was Notre Dame-Stanford and Christian McCaffrey was still on the team Stanford, but he was injured at the time so he didn't play.
Speaker 1:But we had a chance to experience the campus. I actually had been on campus once before. I went there for a baseball camp in high school for a week and that was during the Lou Holtz era, having a chance to walk around on campus and go into the stadium. And you know, in my head I'm kind of recreating that scene. When Rudy's father walks in, he says this is the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen. You know that kind of thing right, the music's playing in the background in my head and you know we went and saw the grotto. We went actually we got a tour of the players' locker room and we went and got to play like a champion sign and walked out the players' tunnel and went on the field. It was just a really, really neat experience. That's pretty cool, and to be able to experience that with my father was even more special.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool. I like that. I mean, Notre Dame has got this aura to it.
Speaker 2:You know old school football and movie rudy probably helped, you know, but it was. It's more of like the symbolic nature of what the movie represented. You know, yeah, whether it's true, and you know hollywood gets all of it, they gotta dramatize things, but it's the representation of the of the movie, that's. That's big. And notre dame, my favorite team as well well, I've never been there, never been to a notre dame game, though oh, you gotta go, you gotta go, it's just a.
Speaker 1:It's just a different experience all right, I'm adding it.
Speaker 2:Adding that to the bucket list matt, we the. Little Notre Dame game.
Speaker 1:I am in. I'm in, let's do it, yeah. So on the topic of movies, I have to ask you I'm kind of going back to my memory here and I'm almost positive in saying they believe you are the first Rocky I've ever met, and so, kind of following the movie theme, I can only imagine how many Rocky references you must get, either from friends or new people that you meet, you know, industry colleagues, et cetera, et cetera. Any funny anecdotes around movie references you'd like to share?
Speaker 2:I do. I do get a lot of Rocky comments. Yep, that happens, happens. The best is when. No, I don't. This is as serendipitous as you get, though, but I had a consultant a couple years ago that I work with, and his name was adrian. No joke, whenever we like, showed up to a meeting together, it was rocky and adrian oh, that's great people yelling you're adrian, you know, yeah, that that was funny.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't be able to help myself.
Speaker 2:I sympathize. It was a I mean great icebreaker. You know, rocky and Adrian comes in and we always crack the joke, break the ice a bit. So after we started working together for a little bit we kind of had a ritual together. But you know, five minutes into the meeting everybody's laughing busting chops. So it was good to break the ice definitely loosen up the mood there yep, yep, a good mood, loosener for sure, but yeah, that was uh, I couldn't have, I couldn't have scripted that one myself. I mean, that was beautiful Adrian.
Speaker 1:So now on the topic of hobbies, I believe you had mentioned that you're an avid golfer. Well, I guess, what's your favorite golf course that you've played, or do you have one? My favorite golf course that you've played, or do you have one?
Speaker 2:That I've played. I didn't pay. I haven't played anywhere. Famous Local course up around here, skytop lodge. It's a real nice course. It's probably one of my favorites around here. I haven't played anywhere. Real wild, real wild, real, real good. I like to play shirts on any golfer's list to play at augusta, oh yeah, um, that'd be a cool one to play, like even pebble beach. I think that's public. So maybe get, maybe get around in there one of these days, but I'm not good. I'm, you know, in the mid 80s, so not, but I'm not good, I'm in the mid-80s, so I'm not too hot.
Speaker 1:I think that puts you in the top 1% of all golfers, even in the 80s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's usually where I'm at mid to high 80s, so I could get a round, but I'm not going to be on the tour anytime soon, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:I have a cousin that got his pro, um, got his, his pro card. He's a, he's a pro at a local golf course and uh, you know, I, I, I babysat him a couple of times when he was younger, so I have a really hard. You know, I have that authoritarian personality so I have a really hard time listening to him, um, but uh, you know, he has, you know he's watched me from a distance and and just made a minor comment and be like hey, you know, keep your, keep your heel on the ground when you're taking your swing. And uh, even something as simple as that has has, has helped me out. So it, as painful as it is for me to admit, paul, uh, you, you have helped.
Speaker 2:So thank you for that For me you gotta take those tips when they come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I would say for me, taking the political affiliation out of it, because it was probably 10 years ago-ish, I played Trump Doral down in Miami, just outside of Miami. My in-laws lived down there and we were on a family vacation and I had made a deal with my wife. I said, you know, we're driving. We rented a minivan and drove the whole family down to Florida and I said, since we're driving, I'm bringing my golf clubs. Um, and the deal was I'm only allowed to play golf, like first thing in the morning, which was fine with me. Um, so that way I was finishing up my round of golf and coming back to the house by the time everybody else was up and finishing breakfast and I said I'll take that deal.
Speaker 1:And so I played a couple of rounds at local courses and I was just, I was playing really well, playing better than I normally played, and I was joking with some of the guys. I got paired with this this third day. I was playing. It was a par four, 18th hole, dog leg left, and I hit a great approach shot and I had about 15 feet for birdie. And I jokingly said to the guys I said, if I make this putt, I'm playing Trump Doral before I go home and they were all like, oh, that's great. And I left it about half a rotation short and I looked up and I went close enough, I'm playing anyway. And so I went online and I was able to find a tee time. It was like 6.57. It was like the first tee time out and it was just what an impeccable course. It was gorgeous.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like I was not good enough to play there, but I played anyway, and then I never told my wife how much I actually paid to play, so hopefully she doesn't listen to this episode and ask me about it.
Speaker 2:What'd you shoot? What'd you shoot at?
Speaker 1:Trump, I want to say 91 or 92.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Which you know. For me, when I'm really on my game I'm high 80s to mid 90s, but on that course I also had two Bloody Marys. Took them with me, um, out on number one. So, uh, maybe I would have played a little bit better, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But let's go either way yeah, yeah, but it was enjoyable regardless. The weather was gorgeous and I actually got paired with a local businessman who was a member there and and another gentleman who he was a professor and I'm trying to remember university of South Florida, one of the local schools, but he was a professor and he had a membership as well, and they both came out and the three of us went out on one. They played nine and then left and then I finished the back nine on my own. But just just an amazing experience, beautiful, beautiful course.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool, it's nice. I sometimes just go and go by myself. I like to just go and just chill. I kind of forget about everything, just me, and the course it's kind of relaxing for me. It's my therapeutic time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Unless I'm playing crappy. And then I you know you want to throw the clubs in the pond.
Speaker 1:You got to get out of your own head. I, I struggle, cause I go. I'll go on a golf course, especially if it's like a scramble format and you end up. You know. You know there's three foursomes on a par five when there's water hazards. I there and I and I go. You know, I really wish I brought my fishing pole because I could get a couple of casts in while I'm waiting to tee off. But uh, you know, most times, most time the new gun golf courses, they have signs that say no fishing and no trespassing, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1:So I don't know, maybe someday you're a fish or two, huh uh, I, I like the process of of fishing, but I don't really call it fishing. I call it casting, because in order to call it fishing, you actually have to catch something.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I have a. I have a meme that I saved. It's a picture of Daniel Craig is 007. It's a black and white picture and he's in a, in his tux, you know, adjusting a cuff link, and it says they call me 007, zero fish, zero bites, seven hours. And I found that funny and I I I ironically, relate to that quite well, so I kind of saved that. That's my, my fishing mantra, if you will.
Speaker 2:I have the same problem, Matt.
Speaker 1:Still enjoyable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't seem to catch a fish either when I go. I'm glad I'm not the only one, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're not alone.
Speaker 2:It's fun to just sit there, though, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:I love being outdoors. It's nice to catch a fish, absolutely. But, uh, for me, I just I've always loved the outdoors, um, even in bad weather. Last week I was driving home from work and it was raining out and I remembered I had it my, my fishing pole, in the in the back of the truck and uh, I said you know what? I'm going to stop for a half an hour, even in the rain. I got my raincoat with me and I'm going to go go throw a line in for a little while. Um, try, I'm trying to learn, uh, how to fish top water with freshwater fishing and freshwater fishing, and I've heard that top water can work pretty well in the rain. So I wanted to test it out. I guess I'm the exception to the rule, because I didn't catch anything. No, still nothing. Huh, Still nothing. I was only there for about a half an hour and I started getting really wet. I said I'm done.
Speaker 2:All right 0.5.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in my last episode I started a new trend. If you will, I don't want to call it a trend, but at least a trend for me and for this show. A friend of mine and listener of the show had made a suggestion that every episode I should share a random fact. So I want to try to make it packaging related, and last week or, excuse me, last episode was the first time and I mentioned Ethyl the Whale, which is an 82-foot recycled plastic structure. So this time I was going to ask if you were aware that when bubble wrap was invented in 1957, it was actually invented as a textured wallpaper. That was the intent. Actually invented as a textured wallpaper. That was the intent. And when they saw the air bubbles trapped between the layers, they realized they had a new application, and so that was the birth of bubble wrap. I thought that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 2:That is interesting. So many good inventions were for something else that failed. But they learned and it became great in something completely different than what it was intended in the first place.
Speaker 1:One that always stuck with me was microwaves. How microwaves originally got invented, and I'm not going to remember the scientist, I'm not going to try to look it up now, but there was a scientist working with a I don't know if it was x-ray technology or something, but they had this tube that was emitting the x-rays, or I should say microwaves, and they had a chocolate bar in their lab coat pocket and they stood in front of the tube for a minute and then, look know, I guess, reached into their pocket and realized that the chocolate bar had completely melted and just turned to mush, and they realized that the, the microwaves were exciting, the particles in a way that caused you know the particles to uh, you know, friction between the particles, which would create heat, and it heated up the, the food, and, and that was, lo and behold, the birth of, uh, microwave ovens. So yeah, my head's filled with random, useless information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think penicillin was a mistake as well. Yeah, I think they were working on I forget they were working on something else and then one of the scientists left his like sandwich there over a long weekend and there was mold and like something spilled on it and there was mold. Like you got back and there's mold on the sandwich, except in this one spot and that's where it spilled on it and and they're like huh, it grew there and it's like penicillin. You know that was so many things accidental.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of interesting, interesting exercise to think about. I'm sure if I go online I could probably find a somebody's put together a list. There's probably hundreds of examples of that out there. Definitely organizations or events expos that you either have been to or support that are aligned with the overall spirit of the Snapslide Invention that you'd like to mention and give a shout out on the air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a whole bunch. It's tough to name them. All Do a lot of work in collaboration, a lot with the Amputation Coalition. They've been great. And definitely a shout out to the Plastics Industry Association. Just last week they announced that we won the Sustainability Award for this year, so that was awesome. I want to thank them for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was awesome. I want to thank them for that. Yeah, that was that was. That was huge. Yeah, I guess we were the first non-publicly traded company to win it in like five years or something. So that was, that was pretty cool. So I want to thank the Plastics Industry Association.
Speaker 1:Nice, really, really living up the underdog mentality there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's go, Rudy, yeah. So that was very cool and I was honored when I heard that I think it was just released last week.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, that's great news.
Speaker 2:So a lot of organizations. They've been great. Like Abilities Expo, we love going to their show every year we always bring a bunch of slides.
Speaker 1:When and where is that they?
Speaker 2:have four of them a year. Every quarter they have a show located at different areas of the country. Q1 is usually in New York, they have one in Texas and then out west and then north, like in Chicago, so they spread it around the country. One a quarter. They're cool shows, great people, so we always try to get one of them in a year okay, yeah, I'm sure that.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they're glad to have you there. Yeah, you should come you should come to one well, yeah, new york's 45 minutes. I'm assuming the uh javits center in new york it is the javis Center. I believe I'm there at least once or twice a year for typically packaging related trade shows. I was just there recently for Interfex, which is mostly geared towards the pharmaceutical industry.
Speaker 2:Interfex. What's that one about?
Speaker 1:I go. I mean there's a lot more than what I'm just looking for. But I'm typically going there looking to meet with packaging machinery manufacturers that cater to the pharmaceutical medical device combination product and then end-of-line packaging for you know, pharma med device Like filling lines yeah, filling lines thermoforming, cartoning, check, weighing, high-speed, automated inspection is obviously huge. Some of the technology that I was able to see there was just fascinating Oral solid dosage pills at 400 or 500 a minute and they're doing 100% inspection for a multitude of different potential defects and able to do it reliably. It's just, it's fascinating to go see.
Speaker 1:I'm like a kid in a candy store when I go to these shows.
Speaker 2:They're cool. Yeah, I'm working with a couple of machine guys now. We got an OTC project going down I can't say what, but working with a good-sized pharma company for otc and we're getting into the the weeds now with the automation guys and the filling lines to uh see how we're adapting snap slide to the current lines and the new technology now is very cool. How they could speed things up and the things that they're able to do is pretty, pretty remarkable. Pretty cool stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's the, that's the, that's the pool that I swim in and it's, you know, it's, it's fun, you know you find a job you like. You never work a day in your life. So I, I, I kind of live. I kind of live by that. Gotta love packaging. Huh, oh yeah, everybody, everybody loves packaging.
Speaker 2:Everybody loves packaging. Everybody loves packaging. It's one of the most widely used things on the planet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:No matter what you buy, you're dealing with the package.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think in my first episode I talked about my $20 experiment I used to do at Rutgers with the incoming freshmen, trying to lure them into the packaging engineering department, and I would offer the 20 to anybody that could give me a tangible physical product that you could purchase that didn't involve packaging in some way, shape or form. And I did it for years and I never lost my 20.
Speaker 2:No, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but I did that to try to illustrate just how big the industry is. And you know the kids would have not all of them, you know a lot of them, would you know? Yawn and whatever, I have no interest. But you get a couple of people that are engaged and making good eye contact and they have that light bulb moment and they go wow, you know, packaging really is huge, it's huge, made it worth it, it's huge.
Speaker 2:So listen, that's why there's schools dedicated to it throughout the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not enough, not enough schools. There's only maybe 20 schools in the US, I think, that have programs.
Speaker 2:Wow, I thought it was less than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's I want to, at least that I'm aware of.
Speaker 2:I want to say it's probably 15 to 20. Yeah, and you teach at Rutgers, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm wrapping up my first semester. Um, so I I had did my undergrad there and so for me it's a first full circle moment for me, uh, you know, coming back on campus and teaching classes that I took as an undergrad, you know, to the future packaging engineer.
Speaker 2:So it's been fun it's been a lot of fun. The packaging minds of tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thank you so much for your time today. Kept you a little bit longer than I think we originally planned, but it's been a great conversation. Hate to bring it to an end, but thank you again for participating. Really, wish you the best of luck with Snapslide and we'll see if any other inventions are rolling around in your head that you know. Come out and hopefully we'll have a chance to talk about those at some point in the future.
Speaker 2:Awesome, matt. Looking forward to it. You'll be one of the first to know, man thank you, I appreciate that thanks. Thanks for having me, it was fun yeah, all right, take care appreciate it man see ya.