{"id":9292,"date":"2017-06-15T12:41:12","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T16:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/?p=9292"},"modified":"2017-06-15T12:41:12","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T16:41:12","slug":"nc-state-alum-chase-pfendler-15-found-work-love-college-textiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/2017\/06\/nc-state-alum-chase-pfendler-15-found-work-love-college-textiles\/","title":{"rendered":"NC State Alum Chase Pfendler (\u201815) Found Work and Love in the Wilson College of Textiles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Written by Cameron Walker<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time Wilson College of Textiles <\/span><\/a>alumnus Chase Pfendler graduated in 2015 with degrees in both <\/span>polymer and color chemistry<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>chemical engineering<\/span><\/a>, he had already lined up his first job — and found the love of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n As chemicals production engineer at<\/span> Celanese Corporation<\/span><\/a>, a global technology and special materials company, he is responsible for daily operations of the chemicals unit of the Bishop, Texas plant, which produces formaldehyde and paraformaldehyde polymer. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUltimately, I can be held accountable for everything that happens in my unit,\u201d he said. \u201cI oversee process and occupational safety in my unit, ensure compliance with environmental permits and regulations, coordinate production rates with our business team, and organize maintenance and project work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He credits his education in the COT with much of his success, and said it helped him learn \u201cto value your team, to be enthusiastic, to ask plenty of questions, to examine problems from all angles, to always ask what lab method was used to attain your analytical chemistry results, and to always have fun!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before moving to the Lone Star state, Pfendler worked his first post-college job as a process improvement engineer at the Celanese plant in Narrows, Va. He learned about the position at the NC State Engineering Career Fair<\/span> in the fall of 2014; by the end of the week, he had interviewed with representatives from the company and was offered the job soon after.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n He believes the biggest differences between being in college and working in industry are the results people are looking for from a project and the way those results are communicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The skills you learn in college lay the foundation for how to attack opportunities in industry.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn college, you are typically working on something with a known solution, and all of your classmates are working on the same thing, too,\u201d he said. \u201cIn industry, you are typically being asked to champion a project where there may be little to no information available. You must leverage the support of others to create new knowledge and implement new processes…There are very few tasks where you will be merely expected to demonstrate an \u2018on-paper\u2019 solution. The skills you learn in college lay the foundation for how to attack opportunities in industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pfendler also knows how to seize opportunity in his personal life. On Oct. 8, 2016, as Hurricane Matthew battered the Carolina coast, he married fellow Wilson College alumna Kristie Buchanan Pfendler (Fashion and Textile Management<\/span><\/a> 2015) in Nashville, North Carolina. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n