Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Nanotechnology may spark next New England manufacturing revolution

By Rodney H. Brown

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The tiny parts used in nanotechnology-based manufacturing have the potential to bring a big boost in jobs to the Bay State, sparking a manufacturing renaissance that brings to mind the heyday of the textile industry.

Some companies already are hiring for nanomanufacturing jobs, and if the industry explodes in the way experts suggest it might, there may not be enough qualified workers to fill all the potential jobs.

Some experts, however, say that the jobs will not be as technically challenging as, say, pharmaceutical production, and a number of local universities and groups are working to make sure that turns out to be true, by developing standardized manufacturing processes.

New England is at the spear point of nanotech research. The National Science Foundation has funded 19 nanoscale science and engineering centers around the country, and four of those focus specifically on nanomanufacturing. Two of those are right in New England. One is a consortium made up of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Northeastern University and the University of New Hampshire. The other is based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is run by Mark Tuominen, a professor in the department of physics, and director of the National Nanomanufacturing Network.

“Massachusetts, per capita, has the greatest amount of federal funding for nanotech of all the states,” Tuominen said.

One of the earliest players in turning carbon nanotubes into a usable material is Nanocomp Technologies Inc. of Concord, N.H., which makes sheets of tissue-thin, super-tough nanotubes that can be incorporated into things like lightweight vehicle bodies or flexible body armor.

Peter Antoinette, president and CEO of Nanocomp, is one of those voices trying to ensure that Ph.D.s won’t be required for nanomanufacturing jobs. His company hired four new manufacturing employees last month, and added a second production shift to meet capacity demand, he said. “The type of person we are getting is an operator person,” Antoinette said. “Someone who has good technical hands and the ability to do things in a careful manner.”

Some of the company’s manufacturing hires have come from ex-military, some from the injection-molding businesses that are strong in north-central Massachusetts, and some from membrane manufacturing.

Antoinette sits on the board of the High-Rate Nanomanufacturing Center, the UMass Lowell-Northeastern-UNH group. From there, he tries to guide the research being done toward creating standardized processes, precisely because he knows it will be easier to fill manufacturing jobs with trained workers who may lack a specific technical degree. But he also is a booster of science and engineering education, working with Dean Kamen’s robotics nonprofit organization For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology (FIRST).

“Part of our job is to work on the education side of things to make sure that we drive education to ensure we do have employees for the future,” Antoinette said.

Tuominen said he is seeing a rise in interest for nanomanufacturing training, specifically at the community college level. “In Massachusetts for example, Springfield Technical Community College is putting growing emphasis on it and Middlesex Community College is partnering with UMass Lowell,” Tuominen said. “We are seeing more and more of this.”

For anyone who is looking to get this kind of training, Tuominen pointed out there is already a web portal, run by the Pennsylvania State University Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization. The site lists colleges that have specific nanotechnology degree or certificate programs throughout the country.

According to Schenectady County Community College, which Tuominen cited as one of the earliest entrants in the field, annual salaries for technicians in the growing nanomanufacturing field range from $30,000 to $50,000, making them the kind of high-value technical jobs state officials are always looking to develop in Massachusetts.

But the goal, according to Patrick Larkin, director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s John Adams Innovation Institute, is to get to the point where nanotechnology becomes simply another function of a job, like handling fuel for motors or running computer-control systems.

“I don’t think folks would necessarily think of themselves as working in ‘nanotech’ as much as they would think themselves as working in coatings or lithography or sensors, with nanotech aspects attached to it,” Larkin said.

The John Adams Institute has put some of its money behind such goals, backing the UMass Amherst center with $2 million, putting $5 million into the UMass Lowell center and adding $2 million recently into Northeastern’s part of that center.

“Given the numbers of centers-based investments that we have, and the potential that this technology has for the state, it is the mission of the institute to work with them to identify ways that the state can help increase the trajectory for growth,” Larkin said.

Tuominen agrees, and sees the demand for nanomanufacturing workers skyrocketing, particularly as giants such as Boston Scientific Corp. and The Procter & Gamble Co. use more nanomaterials in their products.

“The demand will be growing tremendously,” Tuominen said. “I think this need is clear, and the gap for a well-trained work force will happen.”

Bite-sized sampler

A large sampling of small tech players in Massachusetts

Mass High Tech research and the John Adams Innovation Institute