Grant Wilmouth, a mechanical engineering major from Kingsport, Tennessee, worked for SABIC Innovative Plastics in Mount Vernon, Indiana, as part of a co-op this summer.
Wilmouth worked as a Maintenance Engineer in the Crystalline Products Finishing and Crystalline Products Resin (CPPF & CPPR) manufacturing area. His primary projects have been working with vendors to design and install a new loading gangway for the THF loading bay, repairing and upgrading the extrusion screw rack, improving reliability of a freight elevator and reducing its cost of operation, and implementing a preventative maintenance plan to optimize the use of maintenance funding to sandblast transfer pipes on the extrusion lines.
When describing the benefits of his co-op, Wilmouth says, “These projects and this experience has been extremely beneficial to my career and my understanding of professional engineering. It is hard to choose just a few examples of this, but through these projects I have learned the paperwork side of engineering, learned how to work with multiple companies on a project, and learned how to ensure that the changes I am making will be safe, beneficial, and cost effective. I would highly, highly recommend any engineering student participate in a co-op program like I did.”