I believe the children are our future. Yeah, yeah, yeah — I know Whitney Houston has the market on that phrase. Although George Benson originally recorded “Greatest Love of All” in 1977 – eight years before Whitney’s interpretation. But let’s not get in the weeds on the music front; I came here to talk about children and the future.
For years, the chemical industry has been grappling with ways to maintain a robust workforce with a looming Baby Boomer retirement on the horizon. The best way to fortify future staff is to engage them early on.
A few months ago, I received an email from Ms. Stephanie, a homeschool teacher. She contacted me to express her “gratitude for your fantastic STEM resources.” It seems that Ms. Stephanie and her students stumbled upon an article from 2003 that featured links to various chemical engineering landing pages. According to Ms. Stephanie, “This page has been a treasure trove for our homeschooling community, igniting our students' passion for STEM.”
I poked around this 21-year-old article and found most of the links still worked (I removed references to pages that have long since given up the ghost to the great internet in the sky).
One of Ms. Stephanie’s students, Leslie, wanted to alert me that other great resources are available and even provided a link to “Free STEM Resources Provided By Public Libraries.”
Students like Leslie will be directing operations in a few years. She and her peers will be the ones discovering more efficient processes, solving environmental issues and building a sustainable future.
Indeed, last year Chemical Processing wrote about a high school student who made the case for Styrofoam waste as a more effective solution for reducing the impact of future oil spills. Her project focused on a class of nanoporous materials called hyper cross-linked polymers, or HCPs.
So how do you recruit for this talent now? Pay attention to associations that host camps and contests.
The American Chemical Society hosts its High School Chemistry Olympiad, which tests students' knowledge of chemistry concepts, theory and applications. Top-performing students move on to the International Chemistry Olympiad.
For 2024’s Chemical Educational Foundation’s National You Be The Chemist Challenge, over 17,000 students participated. Now, the top five teams will compete on June 10 in a Q&A session on stage with a panel of judges. The questions encompass the research the students performed in making their 5- to 7-minute videos on sustainability.
This year marks the 22nd annual Chemagination Competition for high school students, particularly those who have completed or are now taking advanced placement or honors-level chemistry.
The Chemagination contest was created by the American Chemical Society as an optional educational outreach activity for local sections of the professional society.
High school students are asked to imagine that they are living 25 years in the future and have been invited to write an article for ChemMatters, a magazine for high school students that focuses on the role of chemistry in everyday life.
In the article, the team addresses this challenge:
“Describe a recent breakthrough or innovation in chemistry (and/or its applications) that has improved the quality of people’s lives today.”
The article must be written as if the students are living in the year 2049, looking back at innovations that have occurred since 2024.
Their innovation should fit into one of the following five categories:
- Alternative Energy Sources
- Medicine/Health
- Environment
- New Materials
- Proteins/Protein Chemistry
The heavy hitter in terms of prize money is the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), which awards tuition scholarships, summer internships, and cash prizes of up to $75,000. High school students present their independent research projects to a global audience. ISEF provides a platform for sharing groundbreaking research, networking with peers, and gaining valuable experience in scientific communication.
The participants in these events are who you want to work for you in the future. And as George and Whitney say, “Teach them well and let them lead the way.”
Reader Responses
While I understand that every Company requires the odd genius process or chemical engineer, from my perspective (a retired engineer now working as an O&G instructor for a training company), I see the following:
1. High-knowledge staff are being retired without having a replacement trained; hence a large knowledge hole appears in the company
2. The staff with knowledge are not receiving training in the future requirements of our business such as the power and use of data, Advanced Process Control, AI, BI, ML. Within the next 5-10 years this will be essential for all engineers to understand, not just the Process, Control and Instrumentation disciplines
3. New graduates are even worse off. Not only is the majority being trained using 5+-year-old University notes (hence a knowledge gap to be filled) but Advanced Process Control etc., are not even on the curriculum.
4. The next generation of operators are likely to be qualified engineers, trained on digital twins, and having the technology to discuss site challenges 24/7/365 with design, maintenance and management in order to minimize downtime and continually optimize the plant
My question is, "Where are we going to source this labor that will be essential to keep our petrochemical complexes?"
In my opinion, company management, recruitment and training divisions need to have a big wake-up call.
Certain large petrochemical companies are aware of this requirement. It can be seen that they are already re-aligning themselves to meet this future requirement. Still, far too many are adopting a "wait and see" approach ( the same approach as they are using to environmental and de-carbonization issues), which may well leave them struggling to cope in a few years time.
I fear that the adage of "Adapt or Die" will come to fruition too late for too many companies.
Mr. M G Frampton
Industrial Chemist
Thank you for your article, "Engage Your 2028 Workforce Now," which admittedly is not what I thought it would discuss, but certainly was spot on with motivating and engaging our youth. I have always advocated the parental role and responsibility to identify and develop children’s interests into a life roadmap to direct their paths. Too often, I have witnessed our youth about to graduate from high school (and even some from college) and have no idea what would be next for them. The time to develop ideas into life goals is many years ahead of the goal, not at or near some common milestone date, which provides them with a credential to move forward.
Your message has inspired me to engage with our HR group in helping to support these programs and find more opportunities to sponsor engagement windows between our youth and what we do in the community and our own families. Thanks for the updated listing of resource links!Omer Wolff
Manager, Environmental, Health, Safety, & Security
CF Industries Inc.
About the Author
Traci Purdum
Editor-in-Chief
Traci Purdum, an award-winning business journalist with extensive experience covering manufacturing and management issues, is a graduate of the Kent State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Kent, Ohio, and an alumnus of the Wharton Seminar for Business Journalists, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.