I am growing Carhartt's sustainability efforts in the area of operational energy, water and waste. This includes acquiring baseline data, setting relevant and authentic targets based on this data, and then helping the organization meet those targets.

I help discover content and am the co-host on this podcast that seeks to educate the normal person about how they can make changes in their lives to live more sustainably, and also to inform them of new trends and important news in this area.

I am advising the delivery of EveryStep's E-Commerce tools from the perspective of a Sustainability Practitioner, and trying to determine how best to give those in my field the ability to showcase what their companies are doing in a way that is meaningful and available for consumers.

I was responsible for engineering delivery of a major Built-In Oven architecture overhaul from the end of the design phase through production. As a system integrator, I brought together the global team of engineers to deliver this product, all while balancing the fact that travel is restricted due to COVID. This was a critical project due to a regulatory deadline.

At the start of the pandemic, a technology response team was formed to help assist in the critical PPE shortage at area hospitals, and I was tasked with developing new ways of treating N95 masks to allow their reuse. I was specifically exploring the application of UVC treatment to quickly sanitize N95 masks in situ near COVID wards, while also supporting a side project in heat treatment of the masks.By leveraging the connections I had made previously in the public and private sector, I was able to engage 3 partners, build a prototype, test our two concept technologies, and draft a detailed FDA EUA submission for both in less than 6 weeks. One of the concepts was eventually used in 12 regional hospitals to meet the critical needs of their healthcare workers.

The goal of this role was to lead the development and deployment of processes and tools across Whirlpool Corporation's Global Product Organization that allow us to meet our Sustainability Goals related to emissions and material efficiency. As part of this, I looked at how our overall product development process can be augmented by tools such as LCAs to enable making sustainable design decisions earlier in the design process. Also in this role, I continued my support of developing external partnerships between Whirlpool's Sustainability Team and different Universities, such as Purdue and the University of Michigan, with the goal of continuing knowledge development and research in the area of Sustainable Product Innovation.

In this evolution of my previous role, I was aiming to take the goals of "Sustainable Innovation" even higher, with a focus on how we look at products within the home as a living system that interface with each other, both physically and virtually. The goal of this is to optimize the home for sustainable performance, rather than focusing on individual products. As part of this role, I also supported our Advanced Development team is building out their innovation ecosystem to encourage the implementation of new ideas, and help evaluate them for future work in the Sustainable Innovation space. This included the trial and implementation of an Agile Innovation ecosystem, focused on learning (and failing) fast, and iterating to better solutions. The six month trial of this ecosystem resulted in 2x speed to learning, and exploration of a host of new KPIs and management techniques for innovation projects in the future.Also in this role, I continued to develop private/public partnerships that would accelerate the rate of research into sustainable technologies. As part of this, I helped kick off successful projects at Michigan Tech University, UFSC-Joinville in Brazil, University of Michigan, as well two new projects at Purdue University.

I was in charge of developing and filling the innovation pipeline for Whirlpool with technologies that helped support the "Sustainable Home", which fit into any of four key areas: - Energy efficiency and reduction - Water efficiency and quality - Waste reduction - Indoor home health and air qualityThis included remotely managing the work at the Purdue/Whirlpool "ReNEWW House", where we teamed up with students at Purdue and other industrial partners in a living/learning laboratory to seek novel solutions in the areas above. By effectively partnering with Purdue, we were able to maximize the potential from the house laboratory, and kicked off dozens of successful research projects over 3 years, including 17 that resulted in physical "Proof of Concepts", and preparation of IP related to these concepts.As part of this role, I also had to develop an effective way to gather data from the hundreds of sensors at the ReNEWW House, and make them available for researchers' use. Additionally, I needed to make this resources scalable, so that other similar projects could adapt it and have a nodal network of data available to better understand the technologies of interest. This was accomplished through the development and use of a Node-Red and Google Cloud based data infrastructure, which has since been scaled to two other projects. The data it has gathered has been use by many project partners, and also was essential in delivering the massive EPA Plumbing Safety Study.

This was my first step post-Master's Degree towards a technical career path, where I wanted to develop deep technical knowledge of a given subsystem on Whirlpool products. I was tasked with becoming a global SME on Gas Burner technologies, and developing and building our competency in that area. As part of this, I kicked off a Gas Technology Center of Excellence with members in three different regions. I also was tasked with managing our cavity subsystem R&D portfolio, where I lead three different projects towards consumer-relevant features on ovens. I have since obtained patents on two of the three projects.Finally, I was also responsible for developing a strategy towards compliance to new US DOE Oven Energy Efficiency Standards. Though this regulation was cancelled, this work was essential in later cataloguing of our appliances' Scope 3 Emissions from product in use.

I took part of the Whirlpool Engineering Rotational Leadership Development (WERLD) Program, consisting of four 6 month rotations, followed by obtaining a Master's Degree at Purdue.Rotation 1 - Chemical Process Team: I led research on new fabric care consumer-relevant chemical based technologies for use in Whirlpool washing machines, utilizing Six Sigma tools for data analysis and technology improvement. I obtained two patents from this rotation, and took part in the submission and strategy process early on.Rotation 2 - Simulation Based Design: In this role, I wanted to gain more exposure to modeling techniques, as well as mechanical design principles. In order to execute this role and build the system model, I became proficient in PTC Creo (CAD), Mode Frontier multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) software, JMP (statistical analysis) and KISSSoft (gear design). Also, during the duration of this role, I obtained Six Sigma black belt certification through Whirlpool OPEX programRotation 3 - Materials and Sustainability:This role saw me relocating to our Italian materials team for 6 months, during which I learned about upcoming European regulations (RoHS and REACH) that would impact our products, and developed strategies to manage them. This work eventually evolved into our Critical Materials Management program. Rotation 4 - Cooking Product Design:This was my first true product development role, where I was the Tech Lead on an experimental project that was aiming for top ratings from a consumer review 3rd party. It involved extensive consumer research to understand the translation of consumer needs into product requirements, and also the testing and production coordination of the product. As a result of this work, my product ended up getting a "Top Ten" rating, something Whirlpool had not obtained in this product class before.

I was part of a team tasked with overseeing the mechanical assembly process for Reverse-Osmosis water filters. This included coordination of preventative maintenance and process improvements, as well as the application of root cause analysis to diagnose and fix major issues.Soon after joining the team, I was put in charge of trialing and implementing Lean Manufacturing principles on this highly manual process; something that had not been done before at this specific plant. Given that this was a highly manual process, I learned the incredible value in unleashing the insights and knowledge of those who were working on the line, and coordinated massive workshops to share those insights and best practices across all manufacturing lines and work shifts. These efforts led to significant reduction in scrap and downtime prevention, ultimately saving the plant in excess of $5M from lost time.

I spent a summer working in the Dow Freeport Operations environmental group. I was tasked with managing and controlling the pilot-scale wastewater treatment plant that had been recently built in their operations, with the goal of proving out the technology for scale-up and handling of the massive waste water load in their operations.As a chemical engineer, this was a fantastic opportunity, as I was able to apply my knowledge from class in learning about Process Control, P&ID Development, as well as more practical measures, such as maintaining and repairing a massive, complex system. My efforts in this summer, and ability to showcase the validity of this technology, led to a full time offer in Dow Water and Process Solutions.

Upon entering college, I immediately saw the future of opportunity available in the field of green energy, and was able to secure a coveted "Professorial Assistantship" that allowed me to pursue my goal of gaining technical knowledge in this field while working with professors and industry experts.I started in this program in the MSU Chemistry department, where I was involved in green chemistry fundamental research on catalysts for the conversion of organic feedstocks into bio-based fuels. This included extensive experience in the use of Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectroscopy.This experience in my freshman year then led me to move to the Biosystems Engineering department, where I continued to research more effective methods in the reuse of agricultural waste materials, and their conversion via anaerobic digestion.Finally, I was able to transition in to a more "systems-based" approach to bio-energy, when I became the project lead on the development of the Michigan Biomass Inventory in my sophomore year. This included the development of a model that included a variety of conversion technologies, and their potential impact, overlaid with a geo-spatial model of the state of Michigan. As part of this, I was able to publish and share my results at the ASABE National Convention, and the development of a website to export this knowledge to the broader public.