tynajoymetzner

Indelible Ink And Stinky Deals

This is the only copy that I have of a musical that my Mom wrote the year before I was born. She was actually able to put this production together and perform this at the Roseville Civic Theater in California. I hear that this went over well and was a ton of fun to do. I heard about this musical many times when I was growing up. Mom spoke of it often, it must have been her crowning achievement! She was multitalented and I can say, that I never knew a more multi faceted jewel of a person!

Dad wrote this shortly after proving his Vacuum Extrusion Process that is widely known as Owens Corning Pink “Foamular”. This was his life’s work! His invention of a useful polystyrene insulation used in construction and under roads.

My parents were movers and shakers! Brilliant people who together, helped to create a whole new insulation industry…a family project at inception. My father scoped out and rented a hillside in Fairview, PA. He built a pilot plant with extruders and hand designed/crafted dies. My sister and I would carry the extruded test product from the lower building to the upper building for density testing. I watched my mother pull hair pins out of her hair to fashion a clip to use on a conveyor belt that carried extruded bead board to the lower chamber… This took a couple of years to build and fine tune. The extruded bead board had to be a certain denisity and within specific perimeters to be just what Dad needed it to be. Many frustrating, long, arduous days and a painstaking process to perfect but they did! Mom and Dad were the pioneers of vacuum extrusion.

Then came the two year process of proving, pitching and selling the process. My parents had exhausted all of their resources in building and proving this process. Dad had taken a 4 year hiatus from work to build and prove this process. He had been a plastics engineer for many years working for various companies. Zurn industries comes to mind. Sinclair Coppers is another. Anyway, by the time Dad was able to get this process sold, he and my Mom were scraping bottom financially. When NRM, Condec/Conplast picked Dad up, they put together a contract that Dad reluctantly accepted because he felt he couldn’t do better. He didn’t have a good attorney. He wasn’t a big business money man. Dad was a scientist. Needless to say,  Dad and Mom were always dissatisfied with the contract, they knew it was worth so much more! Both of them knew it was far less than what they should have had. They had been desperate and settled for a pittance of what they should/could have had. Within 10 years, NRM sold the process to Owens Corning… Mom and Dad should have been wealthy beyond their wildest dreams…The contract that Dad entered in to was horrible! He died penniless and forever resentful of the contract he had signed… Torturous! So sad! To have spent his life’s work inventing such a widely known product to die a poor man seems un fathomable to me. When I go into Home Depot and see the product he invented on the shelves, I feel proud of my Father! When I see buildings under construction using Foamular, I tear up with pride for my father. For him, these things became a reminder of regret…

Life lesson…#1 be careful of the contracts you sign, you might regret it. #2 get an attorney worth a damn not some hack of a patent attorney from Erie, PA…

Be weary of big companies who just want to roll you and, the Scott Shafflers of this world!!!

*Most important, don’t be desperate for a deal… I have no clue how anyone strikes a good deal. Where is a “Shark Tank”  guy when you need one? Lol…Awwwww!

This is Dad’s clock. I gave it to him when I was 19 and he was jet setting off to foreign countries to design and build polystyrene insulation plants!

A reminder of how time is ticking for all of us!