Greg Batt has a firsthand view into the future of the packaging workforce through the eyes of dozens of college graduates each year.
Batt serves as director of the packaging science program at Clemson University, one of a handful of U.S. universities offering such degrees. Clemson’s program has core areas covering materials, food packaging, package design and packaging dynamics, and it’s in the process of adding medical device and healthcare packaging to that list.
Clemson’s program has about 200 students, most of them undergraduates. But those numbers could be higher. Batt described packaging as “the largest global industry that not many know exists.” Packaging science program leaders from different schools get together multiple times a year to discuss how to get the word out to more students because “there's a demand that exceeds our capacity to supply these students,” Batt said. “And they're getting not just jobs, but great jobs.”
Batt, whose own background in mechanical engineering evolved into specializing in packaging and product dynamics, recently spoke with Packaging Dive about what has changed during his more than two decades at Clemson and where young people’s interest in packaging design and sustainability are growing.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
PACKAGING DIVE: At any given year at Clemson, I imagine there are probably thousands of students who are undecided on their majors. So what's the pitch for packaging science in the year 2024?
GREG BATT: There aren't many who in sixth grade say, “I want to be a packaging designer,” “I want to be a packaging scientist.” So a lot of this is word of mouth. And a lot of that is — disproportionate numbers when you compare it to other programs on campus — students who come to Clemson undecided. Or a lot of them maybe start out wanting to do engineering ... They try engineering and realize that they gotta spend four years-plus dealing with largely a theoretical foundation.
Where packaging science appeals to a lot of students is because it is an applied science, it is a hands-on program. Particularly here at Clemson, that's really the cornerstone of our undergraduate education, is hands-on laboratory experiences.
I think another aspect that really attracts students to an undergraduate degree in packaging science is the diversity of it. Think of a product that isn't packaged — I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that doesn't interact with a package at some point in its life getting to a consumer. And so that variety of packaged products drives a variety of backgrounds of experience that's required to be a packaging designer, to be a packaging engineer or scientist.
You’ve got to have an understanding of the chemistry of food to be able to protect food. You have to understand the physics of fragile products. You need to understand the chemistry around the materials that we use, a lot of polymers and developing materials there and the fiberboard, paperboard materials that they use. Understanding all the core sciences related to those things.
But then also — and this has really been a growing area of interest from our incoming students — has been in the area of design. And specifically, design for consumer interface, for consumer experience, [where the packaging is a] marketing tool for companies ... So color theory and eye tracking, but then also the emotional response of opening the packaged product: These unboxing experiences. Having an understanding of the consumer and what elements of the design can affect the emotional response of the consumer.
This is really something I’ve seen evolve just in the last several years ... I am seeing more and more evidence of students with kind of a core value of environmental responsibility. And so a lot of our students coming into these classes are looking to [packaging] and package design as a way to contribute to the responsibility that we have to the environment ... They're kind of predisposed to look for ways to impact industry through sustainability and sustainable package design.
Further reflecting on your more than two decades at Clemson: What are some of the most notable ways that packaging itself or the job market have evolved that informs how you prepare students today?
[Across the packaging program’s core areas] all of us have a hand in sustainability. And that's really kind of the floor that ties them all together. But we were fortunate this last year to hire a new faculty member who’s got both hands and both feet in sustainability. So that is directly a result of not only industry interest in this, but honestly student interest in this area and our sense that to properly prepare students for careers in packaging science, we need to elevate the level to which we’re teaching them in the sustainability aspects of all the areas of packaging. So that's one area that we're developing in.
In preparation of students for careers in packaging today, versus let's say when I started 23 years ago, one thing that has evolved quickly are the tools that students have available to to do their jobs with — specifically digital tools that they can use for design or for bill of material and [packaging specification management].
A conversation I had with companies who were looking to partner with us ... often I start with: If you really want to transform the way that your company does what they do, if you want to accelerate the rate at which you can transform the way your company works, you're going to do that with your new hires. That's not going to happen from the top down.
An example of that is the students that are coming out of our program are well-versed in all of the latest tools used to design packages, to manage databases of bill of materials and packaging specifications ... And so they come into your organization and really have the ability to accelerate how you change and how you do what you do. That's what a [new hire packaging student] can bring to your organization. [It’s common] for them to utilize these tools that maybe for a lot of companies are new, haven't been utilized yet. That's where our program has evolved.
Are there examples of emerging types of job titles or market needs that you're hearing from employers that might have been coming on the scene more in recent years?
One area that I have seen that I had not ever heard of before is related to data and data management, and that being a function within packaging science. I think historically these people have come from maybe computer science backgrounds, from mathematics or statistics backgrounds, and are finding careers in data management and data analytics.
Just recently I spoke to somebody [whose] job function had changed ... They were new to packaging, but they’ve got a data analysis background, and now they're working in packaging function. And packaging was all new to them, they weren't formally trained in packaging. But it got me thinking, “Wait, this might be an area that we need to more formally handle within a traditional packaging program,” teaching [students] how to do some data analytics.
I'll tell you from the packaging dynamics side of things, this world of transportation distribution, our ability to record acceleration and forces and temperature and relative humidity and all of this: We have the ability to record data on the level that we've never seen before. Now some of the challenges are: OK, now what do we do with all this data?
I serve on the global board of directors for the International Safe Transit Association, and these guys have published standards for the testing of packaged products … They are constantly running studies to characterize the forces that exist in different distribution environments. And they've got so much data that their challenge now is being able to convert that data into usable test standards … I hope this is an opportunity that packaging students are going to have, or new employees in this area of packaging will have the opportunity to influence.
What do you predict for the packaging workforce in the coming years?
We've got 100% placement; a lot of these students receive multiple offers. So as I look into the future, there’s a demand for these guys that exceeds the supply … I think that demand will continue to rise, certainly as the packaging marketplace grows, but I think also the awareness of the value that hiring somebody as a packaging engineer, packaging scientist, packaging designer, within their organization can bring to the organization.
And I think the emphasis on sustainability is only accelerating that, because we've spent over a decade now reducing, reducing, reducing at any cost. And now we're realizing that we're damaging products. So it puts even more of a demand on bringing in the skill set within these companies to design this optimum-protected package with the sustainability and product protection goals that they have ... More and more organizations will realize the value that these [graduates] can bring.
