Bonnie Stuck sticks with rubber industry

AKRON—Bonnie Stuck didn't set out to spend her career in the rubber industry, but she sure is glad it turned out that way.

"My intention was to go medical school, but I didn't have enough money at the time," said Stuck, president of Akron Rubber Development Laboratory Inc. since last June. "I needed to pay off some college loans. So I started at B.F. Goodrich and I was hooked. And I've never thought about going into any other industry, because it's exciting."

That was more than four decades ago, when it was rare for a woman to be working in a technical position in the rubber industry. "It was tough going. Did I ever dream when I was 22 that I would someday be the president of a company that does research and development in the rubber industry? Not in my wildest dreams."

She joined BFG not long after the United Rubber Workers' historic tire industry strike the prior year. She worked mostly with tires. She said it was a fascinating company to work for, as Goodrich made everything from components for the Space Shuttle program to rubber bands.

"It was a fantastic place to start in the rubber industry," Stuck said in an interview at her ARDL office in Akron. "They put you in classes. They had an education department. It was a great place to learn."

She also has great respect for the women now speaking up about sexual harassment and other issues in the entertainment and political worlds, as she saw a lot of that and experienced much of it early in her career. "I would say for at least the first 15 years I was always told you had to work twice as hard to prove yourself because you're a woman. Your new boss would literally tell you that. And I didn't have any problem with that because I came from a family of six kids, and I knew how to work."

Her father was a big influence in her life, fostering the idea that Stuck would just do what she needed to do, first in college and later in industry.

"I think that's the way I took the rubber industry," she said. "OK, I've got to work twice as hard, so I am going to work twice as hard. But you know it was fun. Were there rough times? Yes. If I started with the stories, I could probably write a book. Like Erma Bombeck, it would be funny."

Stuck recalled early in her career when she would have to walk through a tire plant, sometimes working around the clock to follow how developments were working in real-world production. "You would take a technical assistant with you. I remember in the Fort Wayne (Ind.) plant, he said he could tell where I was in the plant just by the cat calls. I was a young 20-something."

How did she deal with it? "I walked straight down the aisle," Stuck said. "I didn't look left, didn't look right. Sometimes on the midnight shift, I'd say, 'I'm married and I've got five kids (she only has two).' "

She also worked to make them feel like they were contributors, that they had knowledge that she could gain from them, because they did. "When you got people to buy into your ideas and that they were important, then you got over the hump of you being a woman," she said.

And she believes things are better today, with more women coming into the rubber industry, and companies giving more flexibility in work schedules, not only for females but also males who are more involved in raising families. "What I'm saying is it's changed so much over the years," Stuck said. "The world is a better place for my daughter. She's had more opportunity, and less of a fight to get there. Not that it's easy for her, either, but it is easier."

Road to ARDL

Stuck enjoyed working at BFG so much that she thought she'd spend her whole career there. But in an industry where so much consolidation has taken place, that wasn't a realistic option, particularly when you don't want to move because you have young children and a spouse with a good career (her husband was an arborist with Davey Tree).

She stayed at Goodrich through its merger with Uniroyal's tire business and left right before Michelin acquired Uniroyal Goodrich. Stuck then worked for Bridgestone/Firestone for three years, but didn't want to go to Nashville when headquarters were moved there. That was followed by a short stint at General Tire/Continental, but they announced about three months after she started the move to Charlotte, N.C.

"I felt like I was snake-bitten," she said.

After working a time for Kumho, she joined Sovereign Chemical, where she spent close to 10 years working with silicas, resins and accelerators.

From there she went to Chem Technologies Ltd. in Middlefield, Ohio, roughly an hour from Akron. Stuck was technical director for the firm, then was promoted to senior vice president of operations and technical. CEO Jim Schill lived in Florida and commuted about a week a month, Stuck said, so she had the whole plant reporting to her, taking time from the technical work that was her true love.

She did enjoy her nine-year tenure there, and ARDL still does work with Chem Technologies. Bob Samples, the late founder of ARDL, had tried to recruit her for some time, and she made the move at the beginning of 2009 as technical adviser, both because she had tired of the long commute—especially in the winter when Middlefield gets much more snow than Akron—and because she would be able to concentrate on the technical part of the job.

At ARDL, she got the chance to work on projects from all areas of the rubber and plastics industry. The firm prides itself on offering a wide variety of testing, consulting, technical, R&D and compounding assistance for rubber, plastic and latex materials and products.

About 50-60 percent of ARDL's business focuses on the tire and automotive sector, with medical and failure analysis also big areas of focus.

In medical, she said ARDL does a lot of testing for Food and Drug Administration approvals for gloves, stoppers, gowns and anything that comes in contact with chemotherapy drugs. "That balances us from the automotive ups and downs," Stuck said.

Promotion to president

She was happy continuing as technical adviser, but CEO Tim Samples and Operations Manager Stan Sadon had other ideas. They approached her about taking the president's slot that would open up when Jerry Leyden retired last June. Samples and Sadon discussed what the position would entail and how ARDL would reorganize.

"My first thought was I didn't want to leave technical," Stuck said. "After we talked a bit, I thought to myself, 'I know what it's like to grow a company.' And I felt strongly that I could contribute, especially with ARDL moving to a new place," referring to a relocation the company is in the process of making.

Most importantly, the two told Stuck they felt it was important for the company to have someone who was strong technically as president.

The reorganization included establishing two new roles that report to Stuck. Ted Nelson was named vice president of compounding/physical testing services, and Ana Barbur was promoted to vice president of chemical/analytical services. There also is an active search to replace Stuck's former position of technical adviser.

So far it's working out well, she said. "To tell you the truth, I wish I was younger so I had more time. I think that it's a really exciting time to work here. I think when we have all of us under one roof, we'll mesh together even better."

One of the things she feels makes ARDL so valuable to its customers is the amount of technical information it can access, way back to the start of the company. It has a technical library—she called founder Bob Samples a technical pack rat—and much of the resources have been digitized.

During her time in the industry, Stuck said the most important change is the advent of technology. She said after college graduation, she purchased a calculator for $275 on credit. It was stolen her first week at Goodrich, so she went back to the slide rule.

"I started with a slide rule, and now I have my whole tech library on my laptop," Stuck said.

Family-owned ARDL has a lot of senior people in its organization, so Stuck said there is a big push to attract—and retain—younger technical talent to the firm. "My thought is you start them slow, but you can't give them all the boring projects," she said. "You have to give them projects that push them and keep their interest."

Stuck told of a young female engineer at ARDL who now has her own customer base that brings new projects to her. The firm also has a young male who came in with a master's in polymer science, and just recently had his first request from a company he did work with to quote a new project.

Bringing along this young talent helps Stuck work toward one of her most important jobs as president: making ARDL a sustainable entity going forward.

"We're trying to train new people because there's always going to be rubber because it's such a unique engineering material," she said. "The challenge is from my standpoint of being president is how do we survive generation after generation. To me, that's my biggest goal: When I'm gone, it's survivable. I think Bob Samples felt that way with the company, and it is surviving him. I think he would be really happy by what we're doing now."

Not that Stuck is planning on going anywhere anytime soon. "To me, everything I've learned for 40 years, this place challenges me every day," she said. "Every day I learn something new."