To New Beginnings

In the new year, my husband Randy and I, alongside our newest family member Button, are starting the next phase of our life: retirement. It’s also time for the next generation of leaders at Dow to take the reins as the champions for sustainability. While retirement is a bit bittersweet for me, I am confident that the next generation has the wherewithal, creativity, drive, and scientific expertise to deliver climate action and eliminate plastic waste from the environment.

Despite my hope and confidence for the up-and-coming generation of sustainability leaders, it’s a poignant moment where I find that I am asking myself “How do you say goodbye to a career after 33 years?”?How do you say goodbye to colleagues who have become such close friends? How do you say goodbye to a company that has become a home away from home? The short answer is: you don’t. The long answer is: that’s not the right question. After three-plus decades, you can’t just say goodbye. You know you’ll still be around – whether it’s checking in on the latest news over a cup of coffee or reaching out to those rising sustainability stars to see how they’re doing.

But you do need to find a way to say “see you later” as you begin the next phase of your career (which for me is retirement from my 33-years at Dow, woohoo!). I thought the best way to bid farewell would be to share a few of my favorite moments spanning my years at Dow. I’ve had the chance to work with some of the brightest, kindest, best people in the materials industry and across our extended value chain – and I echo what I’ve said before: I truly would not trade three decades of relationships and scientific collaboration with these exceptional people for anything. There are far too many experiences to share every one of them, but I would like to share a few.

Looking Back

I started my career at Dow in R&D, with my first five years in the lab, developing new products, running tests, and honing my knowledge in the fundamentals of polyethylene performance, fabrication, and manufacturing. Early work in research and design set the foundation for my 33-year career; however, I was eager to take the next step, which led me to Technical Service & Development (TS&D). For 14 years, I worked with customers, brand owners, and other value chain partners to develop and implement new packaging technologies. Working on everything from stretch film to fresh-cut produce packaging I truly enjoyed seeing how our products were used in the real world. I also learned a lot about the complexity of designing a package to meet the needs of everyone who touches the packaging throughout its lifecycle.

Building a career on the foundation of science and technical expertise, and using the problem-solving mindset of an engineer, has allowed me to build a career as a sustainability leader – one where I've been able to combine expertise and credibility in raw science with the vision and contacts for global scale.

The last two years or so of my time on the “technical” side of the company were largely focused on sustainability. It was during this time I realized how much sustainability meant to me and how truly passionate I was about delivering environmental impact alongside quality of life. After all, it has been in my blood since birth; I spent my early childhood on an environmentally-focused family farm. So, thanks to the flexibility baked into Dow’s employee experience, and the vision of our company leaders to expand the attention we paid to sustainability, I made the leap of faith to work on sustainability on an official, full-time basis. At this time, sustainability was a small field, and most people were wondering why I’d even want to consider that, let alone actually do it.

Since this monumental transition in my career, I’ve been able to dedicate 14 more years to Dow’s sustainability efforts full-time. I have helped drive our industry leadership around the benefits and challenges of plastics, built strategies to enhance key market drivers for solving circularity and keeping plastics out of the environment, and ultimately I am proud to have delivered products that also support a healthy, prosperous society.?

Speaking at a Save Food event in Dusseldorf, Germany?

I have had the best job in the world for quite some time now. How often does someone have the privilege to make an organization and entire industry stronger and more successful, help improve the world by protecting the planet and making life better for people, and at the same time enjoy a sense of personal fulfillment and achievement? My work life at Dow has truly been an amazing highlight of my short 55 years on planet Earth.

A Few of my Favorite Moments

While it’s hard to whittle down the amazing moments and experiences I’ve had while leading and growing the sustainability movement for packaging at Dow, I did want to share some of my favorite memories. There are too many to name them all, but a few do stand out:

• Developing & commercializing DOWLEX Next Generation polyethylene resins with extra stretch performance. Understanding what’s really necessary to achieve technical and commercial success for an entire new platform.
• Bringing AFFINITY polyolefin?plastomers?for high?performance sealant applications to life. Balancing the needs of the customers and our manufacturing operations to make everything work.
• Partnering with Barrier Films & Fresh Express to deliver on the promise of fresh-cut produce packaging. Solving challenges while keeping an eye on the vision for providing the ultimate in consumer convenience and product safety.
• Being a founding member of the Center for Packaging Innovation & Sustainability at Michigan State University, partnering with Brands and understanding that we can’t solve world challenges just by sending out a few RFPs for new research.
• Presenting at the United Nations was a great opportunity and listening to Prince Charles talk about his passion to keep the environment safe and clean – from a distance of ten feet – were just a few of the amazing opportunities I had to share my thoughts with others and to learn from theirs.

• Co-founding the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment.?Working with an amazing group of people to launch a brand-new effort, not that we wanted but that we needed – ensuring that the entire packaging industry was represented in a way they weren’t before.
• Launching the Materials Recovery For the Future initiative with a great group of colleagues from leading companies and building support across industry to get more flexible packaging collected and recycled.
• Helping develop and launching the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. Building on formative work of the Asia Plastic Coalition and the WBCSD to create a global organization focused on eliminating plastic waste from the environment.
• Partnering with companies, NGOs, and trade associations around the world on dozens of important initiatives and research projects.

Leading with Diversity and Purpose

As I look toward a happy retirement with my husband, I’ve been looking back on the progress we’ve made as a society in support of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Dow has been a longtime leader for cultivating an open environment. In 2001, when Dow held the kick-off conference to expand its GLAD ERG, it opened a world of possibility for LGBTQ+ employees.?To see the potential in people at the launch event, to helping them see the possibilities for themselves, and to creating a culture where all our employees could bring their whole selves to work every day was tremendously rewarding.?The event helped shape a culture where, a few years later, our then COO and current CEO felt comfortable coming out to the entire company on a global broadcast. This act of tremendous bravery inspired the entire company and all its employees to the possibilities ahead of us.

I also look back fondly on my time spent on the creation of AMERIPEN, an industry trade organization representing companies with an economic interest in packaging and packaged products, and my time as President. Our first annual meeting was held in a Chicago hotel that had no electricity due to a major summer thunderstorm that knocked power in large area around O’Hare. It really reminded all of?us?that, with teamwork, anything is possible, even considering reduced conveniences and fewer resources than we are normally used to.?I also came out of that weekend with new friendships with people who shared a vision for a better tomorrow.?Funny how folks can bond sitting in a candle-lit bar with no technology! The organization has continued to grow and expand its impact and is busy addressing all the legislative issues facing the packaging industry.

I have also been a long-time supporter of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and GreenBlue and have proudly supported their work by serving on the SPC Executive Committee and GreenBlue Board of Directors, helping create a “scholarship program” to expand the How2Recycle label for store-drop off, and hiring a new Executive Director at a time when the organization was in transition.?

Guiding the Next Generation

In summary, here are five key takeaways for the next generation of planet protectors and sustainability champions:

1. Decide where you can have an impact and get involved.? Be the one to volunteer when no one else will.?Be the one to find a solution when everyone else thinks the task at hand is impossible.?Remember that progress is always slower than you’d like and keep at it!
2. Teamwork makes the dream work. I know it’s cliché, but it truly does take a team that extends far beyond the traditional definition to be successful. Look for people who share your vision and rally them to your cause. You need the team to be successful and it makes the work a lot more fun, too.
3. Remember the science. Sustainability is too complex for us to rely on our intuition. And it’s too important to just guess. Find solutions with sound basis in science and you’ll have solutions with a better chance of being truly sustainable.
4. Keep it positive. Attitude is more critical to success than aptitude. Be the one to figure out how to keep everyone focused on the outcome and power through the hurdles that you find blocking your path to progress.
5. Persistence pays off.?Asking for help is a sign of open-mindedness, not a sign of inability.?Keep after it, and don’t be afraid to adjust paths?to?get where you want to go. And remember that working on sustainability is like teaching a baby to walk: How long should you try? As long as it takes.

Enjoy the journey! I’m wishing each and every one of you all the very best.