Unstoppable Person - Mary Mason

Unstoppable People

Mary Mason

Chemical Division TS&D Manager, PCI Tech Service and Apps Dev Group - R&D, RMC

Unstoppable Person: Mary Mason

Milliken’s Unstoppable People series highlights Milliken & Company associates guiding us to success and embodying our values: integrity, excellence, innovation, sustainability, and people.

“I’m based at RMC. I’m in the Chemical Division, and I support R&D. R&D, of course, is responsible for coming up with new products. And then, of course, these new products, they basically go through different stages of development.

So someone has an idea. They take that idea, they make a prototype, they send that prototype to a customer. Customer does some testing. The customer likes it. After that customer says, “Oh, we want to buy this.”

Then we need to go from the lab phase to production, and that also occurs in stages as well.

I have a group of a total of 6 associates, and we wear many hats throughout the R&D group for PC&I, the Performance Colorants and Ingredients business under the Chemical Division.

One of the things we do is, when R&D has a new product created, we would take that product from the lab and scale it up.

So that's one thing.

I also help solve technical questions or challenges a customer may have.

I'm a chemist by training. I’m originally from Philadelphia, I went to, at that time it was called, Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, now known today as Thomas Jefferson University. I earned an undergraduate degree in textile chemistry. From there I went to Graduate School at NC State in Raleigh, NC, and received a PhD in polymer fiber and polymer science.

After that, I taught at a community college for about five years, and then I came to Milliken. I kind of loved teaching, but kind of missed the lab.

So I accepted a position here at Milliken. I started off in R&D and worked with the plants in terms of providing support to them. And now I’m in my 25th year. At first, I managed a couple of technical associates but now have grown to manage other managers as well.

I definitely love the science and solving problems. You know, when problems come up, people want solutions very quickly.

We call that a little bit of firefighting, which can be nerve wrecking at times because everybody wants an answer now, now, and now. But it can be exciting to try to figure things out. It's like solving a puzzle.

You have this unknown in what's causing this particular problem. You’re interacting with people, going to the lab and trying things out, and then, actually, it’s rewarding when you do solve that problem.

So outside of work, I am a Potter. I actually have a studio at home. I've been doing pottery for about probably a little over 10 years. I'm not at the skill that I'd like to be, such as being able to throw large pots, but it's something that relaxes me when I'm away from work. The creativity of putting something that has no shape on a Potters wheel, transforming that into something that is of beauty, taking that shape and applying color glazes to it – it's always like Christmas when you put something in the kiln and you have to wait. It could be up to 7 to 15 hours. And then actually opening up the kiln and seeing what I’ve created brings me joy.”

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