“My grandfather got me interested in machinery.  He used to take me into the basement of his home and I was amazed at how he worked with machinery.  He was a cabinetmaker and taught me at a very young age to understand and respect his art.”

            Robert William Sherman was born outside Chicago in Norwood Park, Illinois.  His father William Byram Sherman was an accountant, a Certified Public Accountant, although there wasn’t much money to count when Bob was born in August 1929, unless that is, if you were counting losses.  As the economy improved, however, during the 1930s, William Byram realized that his son Robert William had some of the same talent for numbers and organization and he had a vision of a father and son accounting firm.

            World War II ended all of that, however, for a patriotic father that had just missed the fighting in World War I now volunteered as an auditor for the American Red Cross.  His duties took him overseas and after a brief move to Ohio, Bob’s family moved to Manhattan where they were able to visit with his father when he returned there for brief encounters. 

            This move was a major change for Bob, who by now was a teenager in high school and was forced to leave friends behind, first in Illinois and later Ohio.  In New York his family lived in an apartment on the West Side and he attended the Straubenmuller Technical High School on 18th Street.  It’s now known as Charles Evan Hughes High School.

 
            Upon graduation in 1948 Bob entered Columbia College’s School of Accounting but following in dad’s footsteps didn’t last beyond his freshman year.  As a sophomore, Bob entered the Columbia College of Engineering.  By now his mother had decided to join his father overseas and Bob became a single homemaker, in addition to being a college student.  Being a homemaker required money and when he went looking for a job, one of the best companies to work for was the Bakelite Company, a division of Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation at the time.  Bob was part of their work-study program, which fit perfectly into his engineering aspirations. 

            The program paid one-third of Bob’s tuition at Columbia and other expenses and allowed flexible work hours so he could attend classes and earn a wage.

            “At Union Carbide my first work assignment was in the planning and scheduling of the purchase and delivery of raw materials for the Bound Brook, New Jersey plant.  As World War II had ended only three years prior, chemicals and petroleum derivatives were still in short supply and were being allocated by the Department of Defense.  Each supply need had to be justified with a certificate of necessity, and my responsibility was to obtain information on the need and prepare the documentation to justify obtaining the product in an on-time schedule.”  And we thought the concept of “just-in-time” deliveries was new.

            Bob’s paperwork skills apparently impressed a vice president who was responsible for acquiring the materials required to construct a polyethylene plant in Texas City, Texas.  “I was pulled from my planning and scheduling duties and placed on a special assignment to work with the vice president to obtain the necessary piping, storage tanks, and other supplies required to bring this plant on stream.”  Remember, it was just after World War II and a lot of this stuff was difficult to come by.

            By the time the plant project was completed Bob had been replaced in his original job, which gave him an opportunity to request a transfer to the sales department.  Because he was still in school he was assigned a job as a sales correspondent.  At first, that sounded easy.  But polyethylene remained in short supply and companies like Carbide were using allocation programs for their customers.  “My most memorable experience involved a gentleman who came into the office to meet the person that was telling him he could not have any more polyethylene.  He was not very cordial but he was insistent that we find a way to help him.  After discussing his needs and viewing his product line I was able to convince my management to take a look at Mr. Tupper’s product.  The outcome was a supply contract between Union Carbide and Tupperware that lasted for many years.”

            During those years Bob was also involved with the introduction of a styrene-acrylonitrile product that was much stronger than general purpose polystyrene.  “As part of our marketing pitch to visiting prospective customers we would throw a polystyrene cup into the air and watch it shatter when it hit the floor.  We would then do the same thing with a product we called BMC-11 and watch it bounce.  We soon learned that while the demonstration was impressive, we should not use the same BMC-11 cup more than twice.  By the third time there were enough stresses in the polymer that it shattered just like the crystal polystyrene cup.”

            Finally it was decided that I had enough experience to be trained as a technical service engineer.  By now Bob had finished school and was sent to Carbide’s Bound Brook, N.J. plant for training.  “While there I went out on three projects.  The first was to solve a warpage problem in phonograph records molded from polystyrene for a company that made and sold Little Golden Records.  Near the end of the day we still had not made a single flat record.  I drove to the plant and obtained a drum of material from a different batch, put it in the molding machine and the first shot was perfect.  We took the other batch of material back and I never did learn what the problem was, nor did anyone after they checked the batch of material I returned.

            “My second assignment was to go to a plant on Long Island where they were molding strainers from the C-1 material.  The parts were sticking in the center of the mold.  Into this scene came a hysterical lady needing parts to display at an upcoming trade show.  The company owner was clearly upset with her and did not want her business.  In the meanwhile, the machine operator is prying out the stuck parts with a steel screwdriver and with every pry is further damaging the mold.  When I pointed this out to him, I was promptly directed to leave the plant immediately and to never return.  Thus, my first two technical service calls did not do much to enhance my career as a technical service engineer.”

            Bob learned from his experiences, however, and his third technical service call, and as he says “sadly his last,” was more successful.  “It was a success because I made friends with the machine operator.  The company had been molding paint brush handles in black polyethylene for three days and could not get rid of porosity in the surface finish.  They finally called for technical assistance.  I arrived and after about six hours of changing machine settings with no success, the operator said to me, ‘You know, you seem like a nice guy, what do you say we fix this problem?’  With that he reached down and changed the ram travel speed, which altered the fill time.  The problem went away immediately.  When I, with great frustration, asked him why he had not done that sooner, I got the lesson of my life.  He said, ‘Nobody asked me.’  I have never forgotten that statement.”

            In 1958 Bob became a member of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) and he was immediately drafted to become the New York Section Program Chairman.  “My first assignment was the section’s annual Christmas party.  I thought this was not going to be a problem because we already had a long-time member who had volunteered to put the entertainment together so my only worry was the cocktail hour and the meal.  As I recall, that year’s party was the first and only time than any section had ever received an official censure by SPE headquarters for conducting an inappropriate program.” 

            In 1960 Union Carbide figured out that they had a good engineer on the payroll but technical troubleshooting might not be his real strength.  Bob was invited to move to Hartford, Conn. to serve as District Manager in what was a regionalization of Carbide’s sales and marketing activities.  “My days in Hartford proved to be an easy time and an introduction to computer science.  One of the innovations at Carbide was to introduce a new distribution system based on a concept developed by IBM called RAMAC, an acronym for Random Access.  Carbide decided the perfect site for trying out this new system was New England, and I suddenly found myself in the distribution, warehousing, and trucking business, most of the time, handling complaints when two truckloads of the same material arrived at a customer location while, at the same time, we were shutting down another location for lack of material.  As with all new things the bugs were ironed out and he system eventually worked wonders in customer service.

            “One of the better parts of that time spent in New England was my involvement as a member of the Western New England SPE Section and the wonderful fellowship, atmosphere, and food at Betty’s Townhouse in Agawam, Mass. 

            “I became Section President of the Western New England Section in 1961.  At that time a past SPE president, George Martin, also with the Western Section, and I became friends and he suggested to then SPE president Frank Reynolds that I be selected to chair a Constitution and Bylaws Committee as part of the goal of the re-organization of national SPE.”

            This reorganization was necessary because the industry was now beginning to grow and it was becoming more technical.  There was a virtual revolution going on in plastics processing machinery with a focus toward higher output.  Plastics were making inroads into the automotive and appliance industries.  And Carbide, along with other polyethylene makers were taking a hard look at Ziegler-Natta catalysts that would usher in a whole new range of commodity resins with entirely new applications.  There was also a whole new world of engineering plastics being developed from EVA (ethyl vinyl acetate) to polysulfone to polycarbonate.  Nylon was making inroads into automotive applications and plastics were being looked at with new possibilities and concerns.

            This also became a very exciting time for Bob and his career.  In 1962 he became Parliamentarian of the SPE Council and this position would become a basis for the rest of his career.  Just before that career change, however, he served as Treasurer of SPE in 1963, Secretary in 1964 and Vice President in 1965.  In 1966, Bob was named SPE National President. 

            While all of this was going on, Union Carbide was growing and needed a sales engineer for its Thermoset Molding Compounds Division in Chicago.  Bob moved back home in 1965.  “Union Carbide had initially decided to go out of the thermoset molding business, and then reversed their decision.  Their entire field sales force had been switched to thermoplastics and there were few individuals left in the company with any background in thermosets.  So there I was, one of the few that had training in phenolics.”

            By 1967 Bob was a regional sales manager with the Thermoset Molding Compounds Division with a “region” that stretched from Ohio to California.  But in 1968 Carbide began merging its plastics unit with the chemicals unit and became difficult to discern a truckload of phenolic resin from a tank car of chemicals. 

            “The opportunity to become the SPE President in 1966 served me well because it gave me an opportunity to get to know Frank Harding, president of SPI.  The organization had decided to establish a regional manager structure in order to increase membership and grow and Ralph came to me and asked for help in finding a Regional Manager for a new office to be established in Chicago.  After a couple of sleepless nights, I asked Ralph if I could be considered as a candidate and his decision to hire me became the career change that has most influenced my professional life.”

            Bob was instrumental in organizing a Midwest Office for SPI, he helped form a Midwest Section and going back to his machinery roots, helped to revive a dying Moldmakers Division.  He also was instrumental in forming the SPI’s Expanded Polystyrene Division.
It was during this time that Bob met Bonnie, his wife, who at the time was working for Upjohn’s Polyurethane Division.  Bonnie was already involved in trade and regulatory issues and her understanding and support helped Bob make the most difficult decision of his career.

            “In 1975 I was asked by SPI to become the staff director for membership and to assume responsibility for the now-opened four regional offices as Vice President, Membership and Regions.  SPI’s goal was to expand processor involvement and the concept of regional offices became a major tool in the membership drive.”

            The mid-seventies became a difficult time for the Society of the Plastics Industry.  Profits for corporate members were down, spurred by a long recession and high oil and feedstock costs.  But issues affecting the growth of plastics were in abundance.  Ultimately a decision was made to move SPI headquarters from New York to Washington where staff would become closer to regulators and closer to a legislative pulse that affected the use of plastics in numerous applications.

            “In 1985 I was asked by SPI President Charles O’Connell to join the new SPI headquarters in Washington and assume the position of Vice President, Divisions, Regions and Membership, a position I held until retiring from SPI in 1992.”

            Bob won’t tell you this but the cards were stacked against him when he took the job.  By 1985 there were more than 15,000 injection molders in the United States and less than 150 plastics materials suppliers.  The major dues payers to SPI wanted help – needed help – to cover the cost of protecting their markets.  But the dues structure of SPI at the time represented a stiff price for small and medium-sized molders, most of which had come to believe that it was the infrastructure’s job to protect the industry and the molders job to grow the industry. 

            Bob doesn’t have any regrets for what happened during this difficult time for SPI.  It had to be very frustrating for the many SPI managers who tried to carve a new niche for the organization but in the end failed when materials suppliers decided to fund the American Plastics Council and many abandoned SPI. 

            Upon retiring from SPI in 1992, Bob organized his own consulting company as Robert W. Sherman & Associates.  Ironically, his first client was SPI performing special projects, which included a study of the future of PET for beverage bottles.  His firm was the first to identify that beverages sold in vending machines would go from 12-ounce size to 20-ounce size.  He also did work for the Moldmakers Division where his firm developed an 8,000 hour curriculum for apprenticeships in moldmaking.  The publication his company produced, The Future is in Your Hands is still in use by SPI. 

            Perhaps what is most interesting about Bob’s career in plastics is that it didn’t totally end in plastics.  While plastics remain the core of Bob’s career and favorite memories, his latest endeavors have taken him to another troubled material – steel, but steel used to make plastics.

            “In 1993, Bill Ruxton, Vice President of the National Tooling and Machining Association retained me to handle a Department of Labor grant to create skill standards for the metalworking industry.  Our goal was to create industry standards identifying minimum proficiencies for metalworkers at various skill levels that would guide training programs and assist companies in measuring the skills of their workers.  At issue was a growing concern that the United States was losing its worldwide competitiveness due to lack of a skilled workforce.”

            As was Bob’s practice, the project was approached by forming a coalition of key associations that would provide easy access to their members.  In a period stretching from 1993 to early 1995, skill standards were developed and published for machinists, metalformers and machine tool builders.  A Department of Labor grant was coming to an end when discussions began with the association coalition partners regarding what should happen next.  “Would the project end or would they do something more with it?”

            The members of the Coalition determined that a valuable tool in guiding their member education programs had been developed and they decided that a new association should be formed that would be called the National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) be created with each association having an equal number of representatives on a to-be-created Board of Directors.  In May 1995, NIMS had its first meeting and Bob was asked to assume the position of Executive Director. 

            In January 2002 Bob resigned from his contract with NIMS and agreed to be available on an as-needed basis. 

            “As I look back over my 53-year career, I have to conclude that being a novice at the beginning of the post-World War II industrial revolution, I have been more than fortunate to have had the many experiences described here.  It has been a wonderful experience.”
Bob became a member of the Plastics Pioneers in 1995.