Chemical Engineering Co-ops Instilled Confidence to Create a Multi-Faceted Career
After a series of co-ops, Clifford Smith E’71, MS’73, chemical engineering, created a fast-paced and varied career that took him from Boston to California to Paris and back, all the while increasing his management roles in the technology sector.
In his first year at the College of Engineering, Cliff Smith E’71, MS’73, who grew up in modest means, lived at his family’s home in Lynn, Massachusetts, and would take public transportation to his co-op at the Domino Sugar Refinery in nearby Charlestown. A chemical engineering major, Smith worked in a lab that tested the sugar solutions at various stages in the refinement process.
At the time, Smith believed the main advantage of co-ops was to help cover tuition costs. “It was important that I self-fund my education,” he says.
But through a series of additional co-ops, including three at Sun Chemical Corp., his perspective changed, and he discovered that co-ops were much more than financial assistance. They provided him with firsthand engineering experiences, helped him develop people skills, and offered him leadership opportunities, travel, and independent living. Above all, they instilled in him a confidence that he would have a successful career.
“My career path was made possible by co-ops because I learned I could try and be successful at different things,” Smith says.
In the spring of 1968, he boarded a plane for the first time to travel to a co-op at Sun Chemical, first for an interview in New Jersey, then to go to the actual co-op job in Chicago. He worked in the General Printing Ink division and can still vividly recall the precise processes of grinding dry pigment together with the correct amounts of water or oils and other chemicals to transform it into ink.
During this time, he was a dependable worker and clearly showed promise as a leader, evidenced when his manager selected him to serve as the engineering representative from his unit on a team managing a plant relocation in Minnesota. He packed up for Minnesota and assisted managers overseeing the move. His primary jobs were to sort out equipment layouts, keep track of the punch lists and inform managers of progress.
“I was a little bit intimidated, but I liked being challenged,” Smith says. “They gave me a lot of responsibility and it was a remarkable experience.”
He returned to classes at the Boston campus in the winter and opted for another co-op with Sun Chemical in the spring of 1969. They offered him a similar role as the engineering representative at a plant relocation project in Milwaukee. “This time was a slam dunk because I knew what I was doing,” Smith says.
In his next co-op term, he returned yet again to Sun Chemical, but he became part of a company-wide layoff. He sees it as a learning experience and says Sun Chemical treated him professionally. But what stands out to him was how the Northeastern co-op staff immediately stepped up and helped him find another assignment. He worked in the Chemical Engineering Unit Operations lab assisting a PhD student. One of the highlights was teaching classes.
He earned an MS in chemical engineering in 1973 and landed a job at Dow Chemical in California, where he worked as an engineer in a research group that was developing agricultural products. While at Dow, he started by working in a semi-plant (a small-scale production facility) then took on project management roles.
Smith then made a career shift to move into sales and marketing. He earned an MBA at Stanford University and was hired by Raychem Corp., a materials science company, that moved him to Paris where he was the European products manager. He eventually returned to California and spent a total of 18 years with Raychem, including four as a regional sales manager on the East coast. In later years, he served in management roles at other technology firms.
For Smith, his co-op experiences taught him to think on his feet, a skill he says served him throughout his career. “Being on co-op, you can be put into different situations,” Smith says. “You get to see what the challenges are, and you have to ask yourself, ‘What am I going to do about this?’”
He and his wife Clare want to ensure other students have similar rewarding experiences at Northeastern. They provide scholarship support for students with financial need who have chosen a STEM-related career path.
Now a retiree, Smith has a new focus—playing the trombone. As with any challenge he has had, he is taking it on with gusto. In just one year, he played with 15 different bands.