www.aichelocal.org/indy

Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2002

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2001-2002 Meeting Schedule:

May 21, 2000 Election of Officers, Awards, Schwab Investing

We will elect officers for the coming year at the meeting. The current officers have agreed to continue an additional year to aid in continuity with the upcoming November Annual AIChE meeting here in Indianapolis and help compensate for the loss in continuity with all of the officers departing from the previous year. Other nominations can be telephoned to the Chairman, Vice-chairman, or entered at the meeting.

We will present awards to the student scholarship winners based on their essays. They responded to "How could your participation in the AIChE Annual Meeting to be held in Indianapolis on November 3-8, 2002 benefit you, AIChE, and society?" 2002 Orville K. Rowe Scholarship winners were Joshua Jonnard Schoenherr (1st Place, $350), and John Michael Kroes (2nd Place, $150) both from Purdue University.Winning responses will be posted to our website.

There will be an additional award for an exemplary AIChE member that has made contributions to the local AIChE section, career achievements, or other contributions. Please telephone or e-mail nominations to the Chairman, Alan Schmidt, at (317) 233-5190, aschmidt@dem.state.in.us , or the Vice-chairman, Tom Leas, at (317) 232-8945, tleas@commerce.state.in.us

I am conducting a straw poll to estimate interest in an expected Wednesday, November 6, evening entertainment at the Annual AIChE meeting here in Indianapolis. Who would likely attend a 6pm to 9pm evening of kart racing with food and beverage at RACERS in Union Station, a couple blocks from the Indiana Convention Center? The participants get racing instruction, don helmets and racing coveralls, and drive karts six racers at a time through a track with seven turns and a straight away (momentary 40 mph). Food would be on the observation deck overlooking the track. Track time for each racer would probably be two racing heats of five minutes each. The racing karts are methanol-fueled with real-time telemetry displayed on dashboards, scoreboards, and monitors. At $75 for the evening, please comment to your Chairman, Alan Schmidt, at (317) 233-5190, aschmidt@dem.state.in.us on your likely interest.

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will be having their 2002 Annual Meeting at the Indiana Convention Center on November 3 to 8, 2002. There will be approximately 380 technical sessions presented that cover traditional chemical engineering subjects as well as topic areas including (1) Nanoscale Science and Engineering, (2) Sustainable Engineering, (3) Bioinformatics, (4) Envisioning Biorefineries - Chemicals and Materials from Renewable Feedstocks, and (5) Sensors. Approximately 3,000 to 4,000 people are expected to attend. This is the first time for Indianapolis to be selected.

The Indianapolis Section of AIChE, General Arrangements Committee (GAC) is responsible for promoting local involvement in preparing for the conference and getting sponsorship support for the Welcoming Reception. A bronze sponsorship for a $2,500 donation entitles a company to receive a full-page ad in the final program book (25,000 copies), plus other benefits.

We still are in need of corporate sponsors!!!

The goal is to raise approximately $40,000 in sponsorship support. This is an opportunity for a company to partner with the AIChE and promote advancements of the chemical engineering field with good public relations. Please contact Tom Leas, GAC Vice-chairman and Welcoming Reception Chair, at (317) 232-8945 if you have any questions about the company sponsorships available.

Becky Smith has replaced Jeb Conrad as Publicity Chair for the 2002 Annual Meeting. In turn, Jeb Conrad has taken Becky’s vacant spot on the committee.

6247 Deerwood Court, Greenwood, IN 46143-9164; Work (317) 233-5190, Home (317)865-3545; aschmidt@dem.state.in.us aschmidt@indy.net

He was born in Niles in southwest Michigan in a house his Father built over fifty years ago. His parents still live there in a wonderful setting with a trout stream in the backyard that the salmon come up in the fall, two spring-fed ponds, and woods outside the small town.

His favorite childhood activity was playing in the outdoors; indoors he recalls enjoying the Spirograph patterns from various rotating gears with pen holes, and playing with Plastigoop to make Creepy Crawlers (Later he would play with full size plastic extruders). As an adult, he has enjoyed cross-country and downhill skiing. His current toy is his 2002 all wheel drive Buick Rendezvous, although he has not been able to enjoy it in the snow much this year!

He currently resides in Greenwood, southwest of Indianapolis with my wife, Linda, and a teenage daughter and son who attend Center Grove High School.

He had interests in chemistry and mathematics and saw chemical engineering as a fine useful combination of the two. He received his Bachelors in chemical engineering from Michigan State University and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His thesis covered modeling and experimental verification of fascinating multiple steady state phenomena in continuous stirred tank reactors in the free radical homopolymerization of vinyl acetate and methylmethacrylate.

He started at General Electric with a polymerization research and development position at Corporate Research and Development in Schenectady, New York and plastics extrusion modeling at their Plastics Technology Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He has done chemical reaction process simulation and modeling and guided experimental work to achieve chemical process improvements from lab to plant scale, including work at Reilly Industries here in Indianapolis. He currently works in the Engineering Section of the Office of Land Quality, at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), as an environmental engineer. He determines permit conditions for safe operation of infectious waste incinerator processes and landfills.

He enjoys occasional hikes with his family through some of the local state parks and national parks. A recent trip was along the path of the Lost River near Orleans, Indiana. It has a fascinating level of complexity including rivers disappearing into the fractured limestone, enormous swallow holes where entire tree trunks swirl around, gulfs where the Lost River rises to eject beaches of sand and fossils, and the Orangeville rise where an underground stream rises from 160 feet down.

He has been inspired by the ability of Albert Einstein to model all of reality with his theories on general relativity. Einstein was able to model incredible aspects such as time slowing down and mass increasing as an object’s speed increases toward the speed of light, and light bending around planets. A fine observation from him was, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this event. However, our observant Chairman noted my absence and took it upon himself to write this month’s edition of "What You Missed" – Thanks Alan!

Lia M. Treffman, Newsletter Editor

The April 18, 2002 joint meeting with the American Chemical Society at Dow AgroSciences had Stephen H. Stow, Ph.D., speaking on the parallel processes to prepare nuclear weapons grade material at Oak Ridge National Lab for World War II. To minimize required time, parallel processing was done to enrich uranium by separating U-235 from U-238 and also to produce plutonium. At the end fissionable material was successfully prepared for nuclear weapons. Even with the time urgency, the scientists and engineers took reasonable precautions at the time in containing radiation and limiting its release into the environment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Dr. Alan D. Schmidt, Chairman

SUNSHINE ON YOUR SHOULDERS Microscopically thin solar power cells can now be worn on clothing. US scientists have developed a new polymer-based solar power cell that uses nanotechnology to generate electricity, which could be painted onto any surface and used to run low-power devices. Gives the expression "powersuit" a whole new meaning. http://www.edie.net/news/archive/5382.cfm

LEADERS LEAD AIChE local section, division, and forum leaders will join AIChE Board of Directors and operating council leaders in Chicago at AIChE's 2002 Leadership Development Conference, "The Alchemy of Leadership," May 31-June 3. Time is running out to register. Visit http://www.aiche.org/mag/leadercon/ today.

GOOD IDEAS. FASTER Looking for a few bright ideas? Find out how to shorten the time from research to implementation at "Reducing the Time from Basic Research to Innovation in the Chemical Sciences," June 4-5 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. Sponsored by the Chemical Sciences Roundtable, the workshop is limited to 80 participants. Contact Sybil Paige at spaige@nas.edu. Provide complete phone, postal and e-mail addresses.

SPEAKING OF SMART IDEAS… Imagine wallpaper that changes color, pattern, and plays the 6:00 evening news. Engineers and scientists at Eindhoven University of Technology and Philips Research Laboratories in the Netherlands have developed paint-on liquid crystal displays (LCDs). The result? Huge TV screens, digital billboards and wallpaper that change with your mood, not to mention lightweight laptops. http://www.nature.com/nsu

MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE HOTEL DISCOUNT Thanks to numerous requests and through arrangements with La Posada Resort, the special hotel rate deadline has been extended for participants of AIChE's 2002 Management Conference, "Achieving Growth through Innovation," May 19-21. Act now--a limited number of reduced rate hotel rooms remain. Visit http://www.aiche.org/management/site.htm.

HUNTING HIGH AND LOW The National Association of Colleges and Employers has released its Spring 2002 Salary Survey, with average starting salary offers for 2002 BS graduates. Chemical engineering ($51,254) placed second, after computer engineering ($53,546). Chemical engineers fared better than electrical engineers ($50, 387), civil engineers ($40, 848), and mechanical engineers ($48, 654). While ChemE salaries dropped only 0.6%, electrical engineering salaries decreased by 3.5%.

PRIZE INSIDE: EXTRA Looking for AIChExtra? It's at the back of every issue of CEP, with the latest on member news, meetings, and programs.

A STITCH IN TIME A smart suture that ties itself into a knot is just one of the medical applications for new biodegradable plastics with "shape memory" developed at MIT and the University of Technology, Aachen, Germany. Reported in Science, the new plastics could first be shaped as a string, then when heated change into a sheet (to prevent adhesion between two internal tissues after an operation), a screw (for holding bones together), a stent or a suture.

OUTSTANDING IN THE (OIL) FIELD Thank your favorite fossil fuel engineer or scientist with a $25,000 token of your appreciation. The DOE's Office of Fossil Energy's Homer H. Lowry Award recognizes the country's outstanding fossil fuel scientist or engineer. The $25,000 prize will be presented to the US citizen considered to have contributed the most to the science and technology of fossil fuels. The DOE is asking the fossil fuel community to submit recommendations. For more details, visit http://www.fossil.energy.gov.

MAY CEP: UNLOCKING SUPPLY CHAIN LOGISTICS Supply chain logistics, often overlooked, has garnered a great deal of attention since September 11. With stricter customs regulation and tighter security, transporting raw materials, feedstocks, and finished goods will never be the same. In August, don't miss CEP's 16-page career management supplement, including AIChE's annual salary survey.

CALL FOR PAPERS AIChE's 2003 Spring Meeting will feature the 37th Annual Loss Prevention Symposium. For details and deadlines, visit the Safety and Health Division web site at http://www.chem.mtu.edu/org/aiches&h/pdf/call2003.pdf.

MONTHLY MONEY NEWS Learn to manage your money, reach your financial goals, and keep up with personal finance news with Schwab's free online newsletter, Engineers & Scientists Retirement and Investment News. Read the newsletter at the Schwab site at http://www.aiche.org/member/benefits/ or have it emailed to you each month by replying to esripnews@aiche.org.

EARLY BIRDS According to British researchers, birds with large eyes see better in low light. That means they rise earlier. And find the worms their small-eyed and sleepy friends can't. http://www.nature.com/nsu.

This issue of AIChExchange is sponsored by the International Powder & Bulk Solids Conference/Exhibition, May 6-9, Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL. The trade show and conference offers the world's leading showcase of solutions for dry processing and bulk solids handling with the foremost conference on powder technology. Visit: http://www.powdershow.com.