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
Project RESOLVE and the expansion of the Open Lab, with Dr. Amy Bridger
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Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Dr. Amy Bridger, senior director of corporate strategy and external engagement, about Project RESOLVE, a regional strategy for reimagining the manufacturing industries. Originally recorded Jan. 13, 2023.
Hi, I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend and you are listening to Behrend Talks. My guest today is Dr. Amy Bridger, Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and External Engagement here at Penn State Behrend. Welcome to the show, Amy.
Dr. Amy Bridger:Thank you.
Dr. Ralph Ford:We have a lot to discuss today from this thing called Project Resolve, which is the strategy that we've seen in the news, looking at the future of plastics and metal casting and transportation. So we want to take some time and dig into that subject and talk about some other things as well that I know are near and dear to your heart things such as Knowledge Park and innovation Commons. And this thing we have here at Behrend called the Open Lab that you are highly involved in. So again, welcome here. Let's start out and talk about your path. How did you get to Penn State Behrend? You started here in 2011? How did you end up at Behrend? What did your career path look like?
Dr. Amy Bridger:I would say I had a winding career path. And you hear that a lot. I started out getting my bachelor's degree at RIT in Rochester, New York with a professional and technical communications degree. So I'm a liberal arts person. But it really helped me prepare for where I ended up here at Behrend. Because I was in a very technical school. RIT is heavily engineering and technology focused. And I was in a professional technical communications program. And so I started out, taking that degree program and working in the computer support industry. I used to teach computer classes and I was doing computer support for Eastman Kodak when computer support looked like it was a stack of floppy disks held together with rubber bands. So I don't actually claim now, computer support on my resume. But essentially, what it did was allow me to have one step in the technology world, and how to speak in a group of engineering and technology folks. And then also one step in the communications, liberal arts side.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Let's talk a little bit more about your time at Eastman Kodak, and you said you were in it. But that's kind of where you started into this idea of commercialization, technology development and business development. And what started to pique your interest there at Eastman Kodak?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Well, Kodak was one of my favorite places to work. Besides Penn State, of course. It was a really entrepreneurial place, they focused a lot on strategy, they focused a lot on finding connections, finding talent, putting talent with the different industry project set that we had there. And so I was really fortunate to try to understand how technology could be applied to different business cases, and how it could make a difference. So I was in charge of field support of about 1,200 users who reported into my team, and we had to do computer support remotely. So before there was any kind of remote access, you had to call people on the phone and walk them through computer support. Anything from I dropped my laptop in my pool to did you actually plug it in?
Dr. Ralph Ford:To tell me what you see on your screen?
Dr. Amy Bridger:What you see on your screen? Yes, exactly. And so I think that really hones your communication skills. So between the project side and the talent development side, and really understanding how projects go from just an idea to actually implementing in the business and making a difference for the areas we were in. I think I really gained some good skills there when I actually decided to move back to Pennsylvania. And from here, I grew up in Edinboro, the daughter of two university professors at Edinboro University. I always said I never wanted to work at a university, of course, and so here I am a long time later, still working at a university. But when I moved back, it was really because of family reasons. My parents were getting older, we needed a lot more support. And so I left Kodak just for that reason, to move back here. And I moved into manufacturing, and worked for a number of years at Spectrum Control in Fairview. And so that really introduced me to the manufacturing sector and what that looked like. And then from there, I actually ended up working at a Penn State offshoot, 501(c)(3) nonprofit offshoot called the Center for Ebusiness and advanced it in 2007. And there, I traveled around all 67 counties talking to people about their widgets and gadgets. And how they can bring those to market and what kind of funding I might be able to help them with. And so that really brought together not only the strategic thinking part of it, and the bringing the project forward part of it with the technology and the finance, and kind of brought everything together. And Bob Light, who was the Senior Associate Dean here at Behrend, sat on the board there. And when they were looking for someone to help kind of guide this university industry strategy. He said, I don't know exactly what we're going to do with you. But I think you're interesting, and I want you to work with some guy named Ralph Ford, on bringing industry to campus and kind of develop what that looks like and how we can make that model work.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And a lot of that was the that time Don Burkes was our new chancellor, and we were looking for ways to engage the outside world. We all together started to create this thing called the Open Lab. And I'm going to come back to that. But I want to stick with one more thing about Kodak that I think is really important. Kodak doesn't exist anymore, though. You liked it, and you thought they were really neat place. Why? What's the lesson? Why doesn't Kodak exist anymore?
Dr. Amy Bridger:So actually, the interesting thing about the Kodak employees was that they were long standing employees with a lot of loyalty. But they were also very open about why Kodak was on the decline at the time. And Kodak, I'm sure people have looked very deeply into this. But essentially, the short story is they had the technology for digital cameras. And they decided to shelve it, and just kind of keep it to themselves thinking they could protect the market as it was. And they decided not to take the innovation they knew they needed to do, and kind of move forward. And so they decided to focus on other things. But they had the technology to innovate, and they just chose not to act on it long term, then they had the market move past them, and other people caught up to them. And then they overtook them. And then Kodak was kind of not as competitive.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So lets come back to your time starting here. As you said, Bob Light hired you. And at that point, the idea was to figure out how could we increase our industrial engagement and industrial research, connect with Knowledge Park is well. I, of course, remember those times pretty well. And you and John Roth, and Greg Dillon, as faculty member all working together. And we develop this idea of what we call the Open Lab, which is still, of course, a real hallmark for us here. Why don't you tell us a little bit in your viewpoint, tell us what is this idea of the Open Lab?
Dr. Amy Bridger:I think the Open Lab is really allowing industry into the education of students, and I use the word industry broadly. If you look at how the government classifies industry, they use something called the NAICS codes, North American Industry Classification System. And for every major at Behrend, there's an industry that is aligned with it. So every single major and student at Behrend has an industry that would align with what they're studying. Whether it's a nonprofit, for profit, education, industry, you know, museum industry, all the different types of industries. So it's not just related to what I think people normally think. So I use that term very broadly. But essentially, we're allowing the industry into the student experience while they're here. And what we know is that parents and the students really do want to have some notion, or some return on their investment. That if they invest in the higher education of their students, that they will have career pathways at the end. They'll have a job in their field, in the chosen field, they want to go into whatever it might be, there has to be some return on that investment. And what we're saying is, when you go into industry, what those folks want is a really good employee, right, which is not only a technical competency, but also soft skills, and a lot of the liberal arts that come along with it. So what we have as an opportunity to say, okay, let's bring all those together, bring industry and give those students a technical portfolio when they end of internships, apprenticeships, guest lectures by people in industry. It might be industry sitting on advisory boards to help kind of guide curriculum, all the different ways that we can incorporate what they need in there. And then we create a student that is well rounded both with the technical competencies, and then also the behavioral competencies and the soft skills to actually create a really great employee when they come out. And so that's the notion of the Open Lab.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So you say bring industry and I might use a slightly different term, but let's stick with that. How do you maintain the integrity of the curriculum?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Well, I think that's really the secret sauce that higher education brings. And we're not just a trade school, right? I would argue that when you talk about workforce development, you can talk about skills that are needed right now, which is a really important topic. But you can also talk about where the future of the industry is going, and what the next adoption of technology is, or the next psychology approaches, or how can you become a better whatever, person, widget, approach strategy, whatever that might be. And so that's where higher education really has the secret sauce to understand not only what's needed now, but what's needed in the future, and what are all the different capabilities.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And that's really liberal arts education core comes in exactly like you studied when you were an undergraduate.
Dr. Amy Bridger:Right. And so yeah, I'm a huge fan of a communications program. I am loud and proud a communications person and I use it every day, right? I mean, half of my job is just persuading people that an idea that I have, or my team has created, is the way to go. And they should fund it, or they should support it, or they should help us do it, or they should get behind it in some way. So persuasive communication is really important in my success. And then how I communicate that whether it's written or verbal or visual communication, whatever that might be. So I use my degree every day.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So you've talked a lot about how students benefit from the Open Lab. What about faculty members?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Well, I think faculty members, if you look at the federal trends of funding, federal funds for research is going down overall in a 60 year trend. And the states, such a commonwealth, such as Pennsylvania are shrinking their funding towards higher education. So when you look at faculty, and needing to do research, and perform that function in terms of getting your publications out, and what that looks like. A big pot of money is available in industry to actually fund your research. And then you can get your publications from that. I think that's just one reason. I also think that faculty really, if there's one thing you can say is they just feel at the heart of it, they want to educate the students to the best of their knowledge, and they want their students to be successful. So on the flip side of that, from the teaching perspective, I think seeing your students thrive, when they leave, whether they go to graduate school, or whether they go into the workforce, you want to give them the skills necessary to make them successful when they leave the university. And so for me, making sure that that skill level, whether it's technical or behavioral, or however you want to term it, is there and that students so that they're successful when they leave, and they go for employment, or graduate school, or anything else they might endeavor?
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, I'll tell you, as a faculty, all great reasons, and as a faculty member, myself, I'll add a little bit to it. From my perspective, I think, when you try to solve a problem that you didn't just contrive, and there's a lot of value in that, right. And we do that all the time. But you work with a community partner, you work with industry, and then go out there and try to understand in the community what that problem is, and that there's a lot of self confidence required by the students that they couldn't otherwise get. And frankly, this faculty member to it pushes us out of our comfort zone, it does require critical thinking to really think deeply through a problem that is very, very difficult to solve. And once you do now, you've developed a whole new ability that you didn't have before.
Dr. Amy Bridger:And I think it makes a difference. If you look at the investment club over in the School of Business, you know, they were doing investing fake money for a very long time.
Dr. Ralph Ford:But the Intrieri Family Student Managed Fund, yes.
Dr. Amy Bridger:And when they got the Intrieri endowment to develop the Intrieri Managed Fund, and they are working with real money. I remember one of the faculty members asking them, what's the difference? And they said, well, I don't wake up at 2 a.m., and a panic over the fake money. You know, when you really have to apply it in an application where it matters, and you're influencing what happens to other people, I think it really makes a difference. And when you're doing a project in a classroom that you can drive to your point. You don't have to consider the personalities and the customers and the timeframe, and the pressure and all those things that comes with a project that that might actually matter to an industry partner.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So you talked about a business school example, what about humanities? What about school of science? What's an Open Lab project look like there?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Yeah, so actually, we have projects across all four schools. There are a lot of different ways that our schools engage with the external world and how that that works. I think for the School of Humanities, one of my favorite topics is the Virtual and Augmented Reality Lab. The VR Lab who has worked with a lot of museums, to create opportunities for our community members to come into, let's say, the Hagen, History Center, and view a museum piece that might not physically be there. That was there for some time, and now we've recreated in a virtual world. That's a really great example of how our faculty and students can help broaden the perspective of the community around us. And that lab continues to do great work today. And they not only work with nonprofits, like museums, but they work with companies to work on safety issues and what they do. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's expansive, you know, for those students that can't go to see the pyramids, we can recreate those here. We can recreate those experiences for those students who want to get into more of a medical field. They can try out different virtual reality career pathways without ever having to expend the funds to go down that path without knowing if they would like it.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yeah, and for those who are listening, I would say if you don't know about our VR Lab as we call it, virtual and augmented reality, it is well worth looking into. And the problems that they're solving are tremendous. And you know, I want to switch to another example I have the open lab but also student experience and just have a lot of nice, I'll say, pieces come together and that is the James R. Meehl Innovation Commons. And in fact, just yesterday to put a date on it, we dedicated it in honor of James R. Meehl and their great generosity. I have the Meehl family naming it after their deceased father. But that idea started because you and I both know, well on probably almost a decade ago, it's an idea. So what what is the innovation Commons? How did it start? What goes on there? I want to dig deep into this subject.
Dr. Amy Bridger:Yeah, the innovation Commons is a really great example of how universities can help with economic development in the region that they're in. It actually started in 2013, we went to a trip to Twente University in the Netherlands. And we saw something there about entrepreneurship, and how they had some wraparound services to try to get some of these entrepreneurs to market. And Twente University is really interesting, in particular to Erie because they have similar histories. And they attacked it in different ways. And got really different results. So in Twente, they were an old textile group. And they are in the Netherlands. And they had a textile industry there that kind of died off, and they decided to rebound from that kind of their own version of the rust belt. And they created a Kennispark, which is actually Knowledge Park and translation, which we also have here at Behrend. And they do a lot of work with startup companies and like 800 startup companies, the last time we visited, which was a number of years ago. And not small companies, either. Hotels.com was in Kennispark there. I mean, it was really striking. And so we tried to learn as much as we could from that. And they had something called a beehive there with wraparound services. So we kind of took our own spin on it and decided we wanted to create a node here to kind of jumpstart the entrepreneurial culture. And we started with Behrend's Innovation beehive, here. Just at the same time that University Park at Penn State was coming up with their own idea called the Launch Box. And so our idea was to do rapid prototyping. Originally, we were doing rapid prototyping with 3D printers. And we were doing drone work trying how can we work on drones. And then over the years, we've kind of perfected it, about what works and what doesn't work and, and how we can collaborate with others. So when we were working on rapid prototyping and drones, we also got a grant from the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority for jumpstarting the Erie culture. And we were partners in that grant with Mercyhurst University. And one of the reasons we were successful in gaining that funding was because we said even if the other universities in the area, again in Edinboro, were not applying with us, they would have room at the table, they would have a seat at the Advisory Board, their students would be eligible to do all the activities that we had, and we would really open it up as a regional resource. And that's garnered a lot of attention. So in the end, we had innovation beehive sites, not only with ours doing rapid prototyping, but for all the other lines around the commercialization field. So for instance, Edinboro University does video branding and marketing. Gannon University does business and finance and Mercyhurst University does business intelligence. And then we needed a partner to be our non-university kind of front door entrance for anyone who wasn't really familiar with the university system. So we added the Blasco Library with their makerspace as kind of an entranceway for anyone in the public. And so it's a free service for anyone who is an entrepreneur and innovator, a company, anyone in this region who wants to bring innovation or product to market. For our particular site, we work on getting ideas out of your head, onto a napkin, into the computer, and then actually out into a 3D printed prototype. That's been a really great service for this region. We've actually worked with over 240 companies, we've worked with dozens of products, we've actually brought, you know, dozens of products to market at this point. I think 15 to 20 products to market at this point. We have patents on at least 12 products with our undergraduate students being named inventors, out of our sight. And that's just the Behrend site.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Give me your number one success story.
Dr. Amy Bridger:Yeah, you know, I think actually one of my favorite things was that I sent our students to Berry Plastics. And Bob Guthrie, who's a huge advocate of open lab and Penn State Behrend and what we bring to the community. He said, You know what, let's just have your students walk through, and they walked through Berry Plastics. They make bottle caps, and our students just kind of poke their head around and said, What, what's happening right there, and they said, Oh, that's a jam, you know, our bottle caps jam up and, you know, it's a problem. And then they break different pieces of the assembly line. And our students kind of pause there and they thought about it. And they were like, you know, what, when that breaks, and the parts on the side of the assembly line were very expensive, could be anywhere up to maybe $1,500 to replace and they're made out of metal. And depending on which broke, it could be a long lead time of getting the parts back. And our student said, you know what, I think we could make those parts out of plastic. And so we did a lot of testing on what those parts were and if they were comparable to the metal parts, and they can print them in a matter of minutes versus six weeks, and the cost is $2, versus what they were paying before. And it's not a project that Berry Plastics brought to us, it was more of, let's just see what your students can figure out. And when they went in, they saw a problem they thought they could solve that we probably would not have identified. And then they they solved the problem. And Bob Guthrie, if he were here, he would probably say, he wouldn't have been able to think of it or solve it, because of the other things that were keeping him busy. So we were able to augment their operations and improve a process that he didn't even know was improvable. And now, they're realizing savings month after month. So from an existing company standpoint, I think that's just a really cool testament to how creative our students are, and how they can see things that we might not see on a day to day basis. From kind of a product development perspective, we have the dog toys. Lake Erie rubber is a long standing Erie company. And they wanted to diversify their product mix. And they have some really high quality rubber, and they just weren't sure. And so they thought maybe dog toys. And they brought us a prototype drawing, a CAD drawing. And when we printed it out, we realized that was not going to work. So we kind of helped them redesign it. And then we worked with Edinboro University to get it branding. They did all the branding and marketing pieces for them. And so it was really one of our first times we able to, you know, bring a product through a couple of different beehive sites. And now we have One Leg Up dog toys that can be found all over the place. And if you don't, if you have a dog who's a chewer, I would suggest you look one up, because they're pretty amazing. So that was a really cool story in that it allowed us to collaborate between the universities. The Beehive network now five or six years later, is one of the things that at the, you know, federal funding side is held up as a university collaboration, best practice, we get called on to tour, what happens here. And people call us on how we get the universities to work together. It's a rather unusual model. And it's something that's very positive that's happening in Erie that were that we're known for in in academic circles.
Dr. Ralph Ford:universities. And you know, I can say firsthand, there are a number of other communities that have reached out because they've seen this. And they've seen that type of collaboration and then come and look at it and find out what's the secret sauce here. There is a lot of secret sauce, but we're happy to give that out to everybody so that they can figure out how to do it as well. Let's switch to so great stories on the on innovation Commons and outcomes are phenomenal. I will add like 240 projects, 15 patents, we help 15 company startups. So the experience that students get there is just phenomenal. But let's switch to this thing that's been in the news, something known as Project Resolve. This is a very ambitious project. It's 10-year vision, at least in terms of moving our community forward. There are a lot of dollar signs associated with it. It's not only Behrend, it's Gannon University, Impact Corry others are involved. Tell us what is Project Resolve?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Sure, I think, you know, it is a very complex project. But essentially, about four years ago, we started talking with various people, whether it was our colleagues again in university because we were already collaborating with them on the beehives, whether it was Chuck Gray at Impact Corry, who was a bundle of energy in and of itself. You know, we started talking about things that we were doing in the community from an economic development standpoint, and were there any common threads where we could see kind of people coming together to kind of move the entire region forward if we aligned kind of some of the things we were working on. And we had those discussions going when the federal government announced something called the Build Back Better opportunity, which was an opportunity to compete for about $100 million. And there were five of them that came out of Pennsylvania, and we were one of those. But it gave us an opportunity to kind of take those conversations from, a we met over coffee, or we ran into each other in another event to actually formalize and say what could we really do if we had a big tranche of money. And we were aligning what we were, we're looking at what would our focus area be? Where would those common threads be? And so what we what we realized was that the work that we were doing around manufacturing and the competitiveness there. For us, it's plastics, metal casting, and transportation are kind of the three areas we were focusing on in that particular piece. And then with Lake Erie nearby, the environmental science and what that means for our region because we're, you know, our campus sits within two miles as the crow flies. You can see the lake from here, but also we're a bit unique and that Lake Erie is so close to a really strong manufacturing cluster. And so what does it look like for regions like ours that have both, and we can't sacrifice the lake for the sake of manufacturing. We can't sacrifice manufacturing for the sake of environmental side, because we need the jobs and we need the employment here. And so we started talking about all the different pieces and parts from workforce development to research to environmental research, what does it look like on the environmental side? How can we tie what we know is happening in the lake and then help manufacturers who want to be a part of the solution when we talk to them, but they just don't know where to invest their funds? Can we look at the plastic pollution and the negative side of the manufacturing as it relates to the water, learn from that what we need to learn, and then give that knowledge to the manufacturer so that they can implement changes and adopt next generation technology in order to kind of mitigate the challenges of manufacturing to truly embrace the next sustainable manufacturing force that is coming our way?
Dr. Ralph Ford:Why does manufacturing matter as part of our economy? Why not switch to other sectors? I mean, why is it important?
Dr. Amy Bridger:So manufacturing right now represents about 17% of the employment in our region. And that's down. That's not a surprise, I think, to anybody. But it also is still above the national average in terms of employment. I mean, manufacturing is still the backbone of this region, whether you talk about Erie County, or whether you talk about Western PA, eastern Ohio, along Lake Erie. It's really kind of this strong manufacturing, particularly in plastics, metal casting, and transportation. So when we talk about the vitality of our region, we'd be remiss to ignore a segment that is 17% of the employment. Not only that, but if you look at a study that came out of the Erie Institute, in 2021, when you start talking about people that are coming to American Erie as a resettlement community, manufacturing represents 25% of the employment,
Dr. Ralph Ford:Right. So a lot of the immigrants who come here and a lot of the immigrants and you know, the other thing is manufacturing has a multiplier effect that other industries don't. So for every dollar you spend, there's a much larger return on growth of your economy, I believe. And that's been shown over and over and over. Well, you know, we're going to stick with Project Resolve. But I just want to stick with that importance of manufacturing. So there's, there was a recent Brookings Report that came out and it doesn't paint the best picture for Pennsylvania, which it's, you know, I'll let you talk about it. But the premise is that 20 years ago, we had a really strong innovation economy, but Pennsylvania has lost the edge. And I think there's a lot of data that shows that we're not beyond repair. But it says we need to make some changes pretty quickly. Tell us about that report.
Dr. Amy Bridger:So the Brookings Report is interesting in that it validates a lot of what we were feeling, but didn't have the data to back up. We in Erie are losing in particular, a lot of advanced manufacturing jobs. If you look at the map, there's you know, ranging from dark red, the darkest red, to green, we are really dark red, on that we're a spot that is losing the most now. We had more to lose than other parts of Pennsylvania. So certainly, that can account for some of it. But we need to do something to turn around the advanced manufacturing, and making things does matter. Actually making products does matter. We can't just rely on tourism and things like that. So we're losing more jobs. But I also think that what the Brookings Report points out, quite specifically is that there's been a lot of higher ed, research and development investment in three areas of the state, Philadelphia, State College, and Pittsburgh. And for the most part, those investments have yielded some tremendous capabilities, some tremendous technologies, some tremendous folks. But at the same time, it's all stayed in those three areas and hasn't actually made it out into the other, you know, 60 counties. And so we've got a large portion of Pennsylvania that doesn't feel like investments in higher education make a difference in their family. And Mark Morrow, who was one of the authors of that report will tell you that they want to feel it in ways of income, right wages, and then you know, the ability to switch jobs, not just having one manufacturing site or one company in their town that they can work at, but choice of jobs. So you have some competition. And so what they actually stated in the report that is other than those three areas, only 1.3% of the funding out of the Commonwealth goes to any of the rest of the counties. That's a pretty I mean, that's a staggering number number.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yeah, absolutely. So if you're basically saying that 99% of the the funding goes to three counties?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Three counties> And they don't actually get that out in the other counties. Which is actually why it's important that open lab, to kind of reel back to that. That is so important because we actually do create that bridge. Where I do think our industry, folks that we work with, it doesn't matter what your industry is, when we work with them, they see the value of what Berhend can bring to bear. And our in our students are all the better for it. They're better prepared to hit the ground running. They're competitive against almost anywhere. We have companies from all over to recruit our students. And so that real application of knowledge to the actual experience makes a difference. And that's what people want to see. So in some ways, Behrend's are a little bit ahead of the curve on what the Brookings Report is saying. But there's still a lot of work to be done. And there are ways to do it. I mean, there are ways to kind of rectify that relatively quickly. And we've actually embarked on a partnership with Carnegie Mellon to do exactly that.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, that's, you know, you're preaching to the choir. And, of course, and I know, and that's part of our strategy is bring more research funding. And people may say, Well, research funding, no, it has real practical impact when companies are investing in research, they're investing in their future, it's really that simple. You're looking at how do I create the new products and new services, the new healthcare technologies, whatever else it may be? So on Project Resolve, the first phase of this is something known as the Center for Manufacturing Competitiveness, which is a center that you envision, we envision in Knowledge Park. What is the Center for manufacturing competitiveness, what's going to be there? What are the capabilities?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Absolutely. So when we didn't get the build back better, all of the partners agreed to keep pushing forward on their specific initiatives individually, and we kind of check in on a monthly basis. And so for Behrend, when we looked at where we could get our biggest bang for the buck, and our biggest impact almost immediately, it was the development of the Center for manufacturing competitiveness, which is actually a facility currently in design that will host a couple of laboratories that could be used by manufacturers to replicate their manufacturing sites in order to test out new technologies, new practices, new processes, in a very relevant, translatable environment, that they could then test things out there in order to launch them into their own operations. So a lot of manufacturers can't afford to take down their lines to test out new technology. They can do that in our site.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So a new technology is how do I come up with new materials for plastics or recycling?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Right recyclers, battery testing, all of the things. And that applies on plastic. So while the plastic lab dedicated to recycling, and lifecycle analysis, and life cycle costing, so when they come to us and say, is it better for a straw to be made out of plastic, this plastic, or this plastic, or this plastic? Or this plastic, we can quickly do some testing to tell them? What is making the most sense? Where should you invest your dollars in which material? If we wanted to talk about process improvements, using sensors and making sure that everything is working really well, and you're tracking your emissions and tracking, you know, what makes the most sense from a environmental footprint on this line? Or where could you make improvements that would really drastically improve the quality of product. Or you don't want to create in the pollution side, we can help you there. So we have a lab, focused on the plastics manufacturing side, we have a lab focused on metal casting with a foundry, looking at the same types of questions just on a metal materials perspective. And then we'll also have a battery testing center. We know that Wabetec still is a major employer here. I know they've declined in the last few years. But they have some really interesting things happening in their industry and locomotive, which also ties into the mining industry. And then in the marine industry, as vehicles switch over to autonomous and electrification of vehicles. You know, we have a unique opportunity here to be a part of that. And one of the gaps that we're seeing in the market right now is for testing for the batteries. So when you start talking about one battery, that's great when you put it together with a pack of 10. That's great when you put that pack of 10 in with a string of another string of 10. And then you build out to you know, several 1000 batteries all at once, which is what you would need to power a locomotive or a tugboat or a mining piece of equipment, then you run into how am I going to test this so it's safe on the road. And there are tests all across the country. But there is not one spot where companies can go and actually perform testing and research on battery safety. And so we're having a heavy haul focused.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And this idea of getting to a green economy, vehicle electrification, that's all part of it. But it's not easy. You can't turn the switch and make that happen. Now let's also talk, there's a you know, we're talking about some A manufacturing that we may have heard of traditionally, but there's something in here called industry 4.0 in robotics. So there's a really high tech part of this too, isn't there?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Sure. And that's where you get into the sensors, right. So if you put, for example, sensors on piece of equipment, you can predict when they're going to fail. Which means you're more efficient. Which also means you're only purchasing parts that are going to fail. And you can predict that. You could have sensors for how plastic or parts like the bottle caps are moving forward, you could have sensors for, you know, robots, and how you can kind of use robots to augment your workforce and things like that. Industry. 4.0 is so broad and so large of an area, that it's almost overwhelming. And I think there's a lot of folks that have data in their industry, and doesn't matter whether it's healthcare data, doesn't matter where the data is coming from, we have an abundance of data, but it's the key is being able to make decisions based on the data that you have. So there's a data science perspective, data analytics perspective, there's a visualization of that data perspective for how people can digest that information in a seemingly great way. So it's not even just about the sensors and the robots and what the technology is, but then what do you do with the data? And then how do you present it in a way where people are going to ingest it in in a meaningful way, and are able to make decisions based on the data. So that is a big part of how we can rethink manufacturing. Right now, we have a lot of talent and a lot of historical knowledge in manufacturing. But what we don't have is a lot of upskill equipment. And you know, we need more technology. So areas like Alabama, and North Carolina are building these factories of the future. And, you know, we need to be able to compete with those folks. We don't want that to
Dr. Ralph Ford:So where do students and faculty come in, in leave. the center for manufacturing? Competitiveness? Right?
Dr. Amy Bridger:So essentially, this is still tied to the strategic plan that when I came on board, in 2010 or 2011, that we were talking about in terms of how can we be a center of
Dr. Ralph Ford:And there's a really important environmental excellence in certain areas. And these are areas where I think we can help. There's so much work to be done. But where can we help specifically in one area was in materials and plastics and quickly metals. So it really ties into the strategic areas of our faculty and our students already, for what we wanted to build in terms of technology focus areas,. And how we have the Pennsylvania Sea Grant College here, which is a huge boon for us. And how do we tie what's happened on the lake and the Pennsylvania Sea Grant College along with our Environmental Studies students. And so it really follows when you start talking about project implementation. It really started back then, with what are the things we wanted from our different schools and what the schools identified as areas of growth, and areas where they really wanted to help their students thrive, and areas where we wanted to invest. And we've been investing ever since then. I mean, I often say resolve is really just my term for how I speak to the outside world, because that's, that's my job. But really, the basis of what resolve is whether you're talking to Behrend, or whether you're talking to Gannon are all things we were already doing and already investing in. We're already tied to our educational mission. piece, we are trying to reduce the impact on the lake in particular in microplastics. We see it in the news every day. So how does this play into reduction of microplastics in our waterways?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Yeah, I'll broaden it first to plastics. But I think what's interesting about the Erie region and why it's perfect for this initiative is that Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes. So the Great Lakes are the largest freshwater source in the world, I believe. And Lake Erie is the shallowest so water churns, and overturns. And like every 2.6 years or something like that. And so in some of the other great lakes, it doesn't overturn for over 100 years. They're so deep, they're so deep that it matters, right? So we're actually a good testbed. So things that we do here to improve plastic pollution, whether for the good or bad or felt more quickly, we can test it out here in a testbed and then those things that work, we can amplify, you know, an improvement science method, and those things that don't work we can discard and move on. So Lake Erie actually provides a unique distinct benefit to why resolve should locate here instead of even any of the other great lakes to be honest.
Dr. Ralph Ford:You know, I would, it's a really compelling story. And I like to tell the story and you know, this of, you know, it's not so easy to say, let's just ban plastics or let's ban this material. You really need to look at it in a scientific way and the answers are often more complex. So we have these materials, because they have a lot of advantages and getting rid of them, actually with disadvantages as a whole. So there's a whole science that goes into that as well. I do want to talk about the funding for this project as well. We're really, you know, fortunate that our county made a significant investment of $5 million, they passed this fall. Tell us a bit about that investment, what it means. How are we going to come up with the rest of the funding for this project?
Dr. Amy Bridger:Sure. When we, when we were looking for funding when we had to kind of break this project down into priorities, and everybody was kind of trying to figure out what was their first priority, we knew this was going to be the construction of the CMC for us. And it just is a large investment for a federal agency. So where universities normally get funding is through research. But it's unlikely that we're going to get that kind of funding for an entire building. So I was really fortunate that our county council and county government really came through with a $5 million investment into what resolve represents for this region. And I'm equally thrilled that Penn State University through Dr. Neeli Bendapudi, as our president matched in cash, and in kind the county investment. I mean, that really speaks volumes to the importance, not necessarily in building out Behrend, but building out the manufacturing sectors. That's an investment in our manufacturers. It's an investment of the next generation of employees that are going into those manufacturing sites. And so that's really what it speaks to, is just how important this is to the community as a whole and the county as a whole. We actually have been seeking funding through a variety of different sources for not only the building itself, but for people and equipment. And then also, you know, the outreach into the community so that people understand why it's important. Not only is it important to the manufacturing sectors that employ folks, but to reduce pollution and plastic pollution. Pollution disproportionately affects communities of color, and minoritized communities and often communities that are left behind. So if we can do our part, to reduce the plastic pollution and pollution in general, then it should disproportionately impact in a positive way those communities that were hardest hit. So we seek funding from a lot of different sources. We break it into construction, which is infrastructure and people and equipment. And we are actively seeking funding from federal sources and state sources for all three of those pockets. We were successful this year and getting Iraqi awards. So a big thanks to our elected officials. Yep, state funded. And our elected officials really helped us out there. And I think it's important that they invested as well.
Dr. Ralph Ford:It is always that partnership of government funding, university funding and industry funding that brings a project like this to fruition. We've seen it in community after community. And that's what's happening here. So I want to get to one more topic before we close up and that's Knowledge Park. You do all these things, but you oversee Knowledge Park as well. And that's near and dear to your heart. So give us an update. What's new in Knowledge Park?
Dr. Amy Bridger:You know, Knowledge Park is such a very cool place. And I say that I don't often market knowledge Park, I often market the open lab and I market Behrend. And then if I do that really well and we create the value proposition. People will be drawn in to Knowledge Park. And I think that's a model that's worked over the years. In the recent year, what we found is that Truck-Lite nicely moved to the park. They were located in Jamestown, New York, and had been a long standing partner with us doing research and senior design projects and recruiting our students. And just really felt like they might have a better chance at filling some of their empty positions if they were closer to the university and had closer ties. But they were the last of probably four or five companies that have moved into the park in the last three years. So even with COVID happening, we've seen an influx of people that really feel like workforce is the reason why they need to locate here. They need to be close to their next generation of talent and it does make a difference. I've heard the president of Truck-Lite. It's a Clarience company, Brian Kupchella, who's an alumni, you know, when they were in New York, they had 10 or 15 open positions pretty regularly. And since they've moved here and opened up less than six months ago, they have no open positions
Dr. Ralph Ford:And Truck-Lite, you know, we could go on and on about that. We don't often hear the story about corporate headquarters moving to Erie, right? For all, you know, too often heard the other side of that story, but they're also high tech. They're into vehicle electrification. So it sounds, you know, Truck-Lite they do a lot of really neat things.
Dr. Amy Bridger:They're a company that will really benefit from the work that we're doing in that Resolve project.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, we are coming to the end of our discussion. Is there anything else you would like to add today?
Dr. Amy Bridger:No, I just I think Erie is a very special place. I think we have a lot to offer and I think we can can really, we make an impact in certain areas. I do think that having universities work with the outside communities and make their impact, is where higher education needs to go. I still think Behrend is ahead of the curve on that. And I just think we need to keep, keep pushing and keep kind of focusing on that and keep moving things forward.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, thank you very much. This has been a great discussion. I am Chancellor Ralph Ford. You've been listening to Behrend Talks. My guest today is Dr. Amy Bridger, Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and External Engagement here at Behrend. Thank you, it's been a great conversation.
Dr. Amy Bridger:Thanks. It was fun.