Hasco's Brenda Clark designed her own path

Clark: I’m the engineering manager, and this year will be 18 years in November, when I re-started [working] after raising my two boys to elementary school.  

We started getting into hot-runner systems, and then they realized I knew mold design a lot more than I let them know, so they asked me to be the engineering manager and oversee the hot-runner systems and the designs. And I said, “Sure, no big deal, I can do that.” 

It morphed into what I’m doing now, which is engineering manager for all the U.S. There’s a full team that I work with, not only in the U.S., but also in Canada and Mexico.   

I assist our customers, as well as our area reps, with product questions and design implementation. Just this morning, I was dealing with a Canadian customer, assisting on design implementation on a specific special part.  

What do you like best about it? 

Clark: [My job involves] multiple hats and multiple locations, and that’s what makes it interesting. There’s never a dull moment. 

I’m extremely busy, which is the best part. I’m needed everywhere, not only the customers but with our team and the sales reps, and I can constantly be in that manufacturing mode. From medical to automotive to consumer, it’s across the board. If it’s a plastic part [that] needs to be made, and they utilize our mold plates and components, they need to have answers.  

What led you to a career in plastics?  

Clark: It’s funny how I got into this. I always had my goal set on [being] an architect because I like design; I was thinking interior design or [working as] an architect or something. But then I took the ACTs, I believe it was back then, and [the test] basically said I [should] be an engineer. So, I took that to heart, and that was in ninth grade.  

All through high school, I took drafting, and my drafting teacher wasn’t keen on my drawings. They weren’t like, “Wow, this is the person who needs to be working on the board.” But I understood everything.  

I drew a widget or something; I got second place [for the design], and I thought, “You know, that’s pretty good … for a girl.” Because that’s how they spoke back then.  

Accurate Plastic Tooling, based in East Hartford, Conn., sent a request [to the high school] for somebody to work in engineering doing light drafting, but also answering the phones, possibly [as] an office assistant/engineer. But the drafting instructor was not going to give it to me. The first thing he asked was, “Who needs a job?” And at that point, I really needed a job. 

My boyfriend was sitting behind me; he had a job, and [the teacher] gave [the job information] to him. As we were walking out of the class, I was upset. [My boyfriend] took me by the arm, and he said, “Here, I got this for you.” He knew I really wanted it.  

It turned out that Accurate Plastic Tooling was a plastic injection mold builder on the other side of the river from where I grew up; they were a 10-minute drive. I got my own car, went over and applied, and they hired me.  

I think it was because one of the owners of the company and I saw eye to eye, we spoke the same language. He was the engineer, and he took me under his wing. He knew I wanted to do [engineering] and that I was really willing to learn, so he showed me the ropes, from doing the drafting to actually working on a lathe and some of the grinding machines. 

It was a tiny company, and I could get into any aspect of the company. 

What’s the most important lesson you learned on that first job? 

Clark: Perseverance, and just continuing and learning every day. There were difficult times back then because I was learning. And, when you’re learning, you make mistakes, but if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not learning. I have days when I’m like, “Wow, I’m still learning stuff, which is good.” 

As a woman, did you feel there were any barriers to the industry? 

Clark: Obviously, there have been issues. It really doesn’t matter whether [someone is] male or female, you can get friction from both sides. And it’s how you work at overcoming that.   

But I’ve always found a way of working around it. And I’ve always really been very adamant that others know I know what I’m talking about and that I’m not just going to sit there and be pretty in the room. I know what I need to do to add to the conversation, but I never tried to take away from it any negativity; I shut that door before it starts.  

Once I start in a meeting, it’s business talk, and people realize that that’s what we’re talking about.   

You need to earn that respect. It’s something that, hopefully, your parents instilled in you, but that also you instill in yourself a type of respect. 

You’ve volunteered as a FLiP [Future Leaders in Plastics] mentor for a couple years. How do your own experiences inform your work with SPE and PLASTICS to promote jobs in the industry?  

Clark: You’d be surprised how many people utilize plastic parts every day, but they don’t have a clue how they’re created. 

Just getting the younger generation interested in looking at it, knowing the sky’s the limit, you can make it what you want. I like to relate that back to the younger generation … and say, “Yes, you can do it. This is how I did it. Go out there, find an internship, they’re out there.” 

You don’t necessarily have to have a four-year degree, but an engineering degree helps; it gives you that foundation. You can learn from the seasoned engineers.  

My son just went through a four-year [civil] engineering degree, and my two-year degree was just hands-down identical, if not better, than his four-year degree. He saw what I did, and he’s learned. He’s just grasping as much as he can from senior engineers, and he’s thriving, and he loves it, and he’ll go far. Anyone can apply themselves that way. 

Experience is more valuable than any kind of textbook. You are a better engineer when you learn by fire. 

That’s why it’s really important for me to encourage internships and mentorships. 

How many FLiP participants have you mentored so far? What are some common problems they’re confronting?  

Clark: I’ve had three or four. The big problem is time, not only mine, but theirs, because they’re trying to network and grow their engineering career. They’re working at maybe one of their first jobs, and that takes a lot of their time.  

The mentees actually realize once we finally get to sit down and talk, “She did what I want to do.” There are a lot of benefits to being a mentor or mentee. 

What advice do you give to young engineers? 

Clark: You can actually create the career you want, within the company that you’re currently at, or possibly at another location. Don’t go around with blinders on; pay attention to what’s happening around you. 

When I was doing mold design, I had supplier catalogs in front of me at one point, and I spun around, and I was just trying to take a break. And I looked at them, and I [thought], “Boy, maybe someday I could work for one of these; that would be cool.”  

At that time, that was exactly what I wanted to do — mold design full time. But you should never look at your life this way. You should look at [all your options]. Because here I am sitting at one of the suppliers. 

You’ve been in SPE since 1981. Why is it important to you? 

Clark: In high school, I was very shy, I didn’t speak with anyone. People would ask me something, and it’d be hard for me to even answer them. The first company that I worked with, [the company owner] didn’t just have me on the board and stuck in a corner. He could have. He kind of forced me to go to SPE meetings, to help with the golf outings, to go to design-review meetings with other engineers, and really grow that. 

He said, “This is part of the job; this is what you need to do. You need to learn how to play golf; you need to go to these meetings and network. You learn from others, and they’re your peers. If they’re not your peers to start with because you are a younger, upwardly moving engineer, they will eventually be your peers, and someday you will be a senior member.” 

It’s probably because he saw how quiet I was, that I needed that assistance.   

Being forced to speak [in public], and being forced to work in sales has been very good for me. 

As a senior member of a lot of these associations, it’s very important to go to meetings, network and encourage the younger engineers to be in these associations, be it SPE, PLASTICS, the American Mold Builders Association.  

What would most surprise your high school self about how your career would unfold?  

Clark: In 2019, I received the Mold Designer of the Year award. In high school, I knew of it, but I always thought, “There’s just no way that’s ever going to happen,” and shame on me, because it was because I was a female.  

It’s hard when you’re a designer because you sit in your office and you work very hard at getting molds out the door, and you don’t really go after accolades. But it’s in the back of your mind, like, “Man, it would be really neat if that happened.” 

And then the Plastics Pioneers Association reached out. To be included in that was the pinnacle, I believe, of my career.  

Between the public speaking and associations, and everything that I’ve done, I would never have dreamt of being where I am right now. But I’m very grateful. And I’m grateful [for] the base knowledge that I was able to learn while I was in high school and interning. 

Looking back, are there particular mold designs that stick out? I think you’ve previously mentioned something about chickens? 

Clark: You can design a mold for anything. You’ve got to be careful because you never know what comes across your desk. 

This was, I think, the second place [where] I worked. I didn’t design the original mold, but I was working on it, and I kept looking at it and going, “Why is it being so finicky here, but not here?” 

I finally asked the senior engineer, “What is this mold doing?” And he just very nonchalantly said, “Contact lenses.”  

But the gate was right on the lens itself, and they weren’t being very particular about it. It could have a little bit of a rise on it or not; it didn’t matter to them. And I was like, “I don’t want these in my eye.” 

He looked over calmly again, and said, “Oh, no, no, no, these are for chickens.” And then I got the whole story: They mold them in a red clear material. Because it’s red, it blocks out the color of blood, so they won’t ... peck each other. Chickens can be cannibalistic, [but] this reduces that, so they have higher production. 

It obviously worked because they were making millions of these contact lenses for chickens. 

I bet I still have a couple lenses in my garage somewhere because, as a mold designer, you always keep your little parts of any mold that you ever worked on because it’s interesting. But that was the most interesting one.  

Any other parts that stick out over the years? 

Clark: My very first one was a cover for Southern Bell [telephone lines] on the inside of the house. It’s funny because the house that we purchased was an older house, and the cover’s missing, and I knew immediately when I looked at the way the phone lines came in that that part that I made would fit perfectly over it, but I never installed it on my own house because we don’t even use those lines anymore.  

It was complex because it was thick walled, so there was a lot of coring that had to be taken out of it, so even though it was an open-and-shut mold, there was a lot of detail.   

You always remember your first. The first time you had ice cream, the first time you had a date, the first car you drove. And mine would always be that little black box. 

How do you see mold making and molds evolving?  

Clark: The components are going to have to be more complex to be able to create molds that can do more-complex parts.   

I’ve been in this industry for many years. I always see there are hills and valleys [in demand for parts for particular industries]. That never changes. We’ll have slow times, and then we’ll have fast times, and then we’ll have slow times, but the complexity of it is always going up. 

What is your greatest achievement? 

Clark: My boys. You have to work at raising a child, and it’s important. I would hope that, yes, my work is a good achievement, but that [doesn’t] compare to family and friends.  

That’s what makes me a good mentor, because I like to talk with people. I would rather talk with people than do things, but I can also do things. It’s important to have good relationships with people. 

My boys keep me young. The youngest doesn’t know what he wants to do, and I wish he would become an engineer. He did work at Jabil for a little while. They got him into the metrology lab, and they really want him back. We’re hoping he gets back in there because he did really well.  

He’s going for criminal justice, and I can’t fault him for that. He wants to do that. That’s good. 

Do you have any positive takeaways from any of the craziness of the past two years?  

Clark: I guess the most positive thing is that the companies that have stuck around are stronger. We knew we needed to keep that supply chain going because manufacturing can’t stop. 

I [spent] six months with my husband because I did work from home for just a few short six months because he has a bad heart, so he was one of the ones that we had to protect. 

Working together, even [when] we weren’t together, embracing virtual meetings, that only strengthens it. This morning, working with the customer in Canada, between Germany, myself and Canada, we had it all figured out in just a matter of minutes. … We can get it done in minutes instead of days now. 

It was funny when I was able to come back into the office, that first day I was so giddy.  

But being able to spend some time with family was important. 

Clark: Drive around our mountains and hike. Being so close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, during the pandemic, we’d just jump in the car, grab something from Chick-fil-A and go up on the Parkway and have a little picnic outside.  

The views are very relaxing. It’s a way of decompressing. We still do a lot of that. 

How would you like to be remembered? 

Clark: Just as a hard worker who’s honest, and who likes to share knowledge with others.  

The honest part is probably the most important thing because our industry is so close-knit and everybody knows everybody. That’s the only way that you can work, is to be honest. 

Always look out and help, if you see help is needed. If you don’t, that’s when we all suffer. But if you see that you’ve got some better way of doing it, or can [make] a suggestion, you never know where it might go. It might be the key that unlocks a lot of doors or makes other people start thinking further. So don’t sell yourself short. 

Karen Hanna, senior staff reporter

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