Welcome to McLinc’s June 2015 Newsletter
Barry Stephenson
President/CEO McLinc
In this June Newsletter from Materials and Chemistry Laboratory, Inc. (McLinc) we congratulate our graduates and welcome our returning summer intern. When McLinc began business 17 years ago we announced that we would make every reasonable effort to provide summer employment for our employee’s children who go on to college after finishing high school. We have been able to honor that commitment and, as a result, have many fine young people who can place a summer job at McLinc on their resumes. We are proud of each of them. This year one such employee, Kassie Perkins, received her undergraduate degree from Tennessee Tech and returns there this fall to earn her MBA. Lindsay Holt, student at East Tennessee State University, returns for her second summer as an intern. Zach Grainger celebrates his graduation from Lenoir City High School. Congratulations!
In this issue we tell you a little about one of our current customers and the work we are doing for them. Smoky Mountain Solutions (SMS) operates a rad laundry facility here at ETTP and has just received an award for completing the processing and cleanup of over one million gallons of rad-contaminated water. McLinc is pleased to count SMS as one of our customers. We will talk more about our customers and current projects in future editions of the newsletter.
Thanks to each of you who have come to McLinc’s Customer Appreciation Ice Cream Socials over the past four years. We enjoy getting to visit with you at these events. It is our pleasure to provide a token of our appreciation for your business and an opportunity to socialize. Our 2015 Ice Cream Social is planned for Thursday, July 9. We really want you to be there.
We hope you enjoy the newsletter. Please pass it along to others who might enjoy it. Send us your suggestions for improvements and future articles. We hope to see you at the 16th Annual ETEBA Business Opportunities Conference to be held December 8-10, 2015, at the Knoxville Convention Center. McLinc will provide conference bags to all attendees. Drop by booth number 304 and visit with us.
Thanks for your Business and Your Friendship,
Barry
Join Us for the 2015
Ice Cream Social
McLinc will be hosting its fifth annual Customer Appreciation Ice Cream Social event on July 9, 2015 from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.. This event is a fun and interactive way for the friendly staff at McLinc to meet with customers, vendors, community leaders and business friends. The employees at McLinc enjoy hosting this event because it gives them an opportunity to interact personally and outside of the office with the valued individuals that they do business with. McLinc is proud to have held this tradition for five great years and is looking forward to sharing ice cream, good conversation and laughter with the attendees during this year’s Ice Cream Social. McLinc would like to thank the previous attendees of the Ice Cream Social for making the past five years of ice cream and business a success!
We hope to see you there!
Smoky Mountain Solutions Recycles
One Million Gallons of Rad Water
By: Shannon Eaker, PhD
Chief Science Office, BES Technologies / Smoky Mountain Solutions
Smoky Mountain Solutions (SMS), a service-disabled veteran-owned small business located at the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge, TN, has reached a major milestone by recycling 1 million gallons of rad waste water through its laundry operations. This represents the prevention of 1 million gallons of water that would have gone into the local environment, but instead was cleaned and re-used. Using a state-of-the-art radiological water treatment system designed in collaboration with AquaRecycle (Atlanta, GA), the laundering service is able to reuse more than 70 percent of the water used in its process. This recycling process not only lessens environmental impact, but also allows for savings to be passed on to customers by cleaning and reusing water.
As both a rad laundry and wastewater treatment company, SMS’s system operates to a high degree of water recycling, treating and processing wastewater to allow beneficial reuse for hygienic and radiologically clean clothing for our customers. We currently process more than 85,000 gallons/month in the operation of our radiological laundry and have passed 1,200,000 gallons of wastewater recycled to date. The filtration process utilizes membrane filtration, suspended solids and organic filtration, ion-exchange capture, and ozonation/UV as germicidal reducers. In addition, ultrafiltration (0.02 microns) is used as a final step in order to return clean water back to the washing process system. This process reduces the water consumption and discharge by up to 75% while retaining heat to minimize energy input costs.
This technology is also used to treat radiological-contaminated wastewater from legacy DOE sites, as well as commercial nuclear operations. MCL Inc. has been a valuable partner in our routine analytic testing of waste streams. Our customers expect technical expertise during analysis, and we are fortunate to have this as part of our offering. Customers of SMS include Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration sites (Y-12, ORNL, UCOR, Paducah and Portsmouth), as well as several nuclear operations. SMS is a Joint Venture between BES Technologies and Omega Technical Services, and provides respirator, laundry, water and other environmental services to the radiological community.
Carbon Fiber Composites and Inaugural IACMI Members Meeting
The Carbon Fiber Composites Consortium (CFC) 2015 Spring Meeting will be held June 17-18in Knoxville, Tennessee. As charter members of the Carbon Fiber Composites Consortium, McLinc will participate in the meeting. One exciting highlight will be learning about the establishment of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) as part of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI).
The meeting is an organizational meeting for IACMI of which supporting CFC members are automatically members. This first meeting has drawn national and international interest from CFC membership.
2015 Nuclear Science Week Big Event will be hosted in Knoxville, TN October 22-24
Nuclear Science Week (NSW) is a national, broadly observed week-long celebration to focus local, regional and national interest on all aspects of nuclear science. NSW takes place each year on the third week of October, and each day of NSW provides for learning about the contributions, innovations and opportunities that can be found by exploring nuclear science. This is the sixth year that the event has been held and the first time that host cities had to compete to win the honors. The American Nuclear Society (ANS) Oak Ridge/Knoxville section is collaborating with regional and national organizations to host activities in Oak Ridge and Knoxville, TN, that will be featured for the 2015 Nuclear Science Week observance.
McLinc would like to congratulate Its Graduates!
McLinc is very proud to announce that Accounting Assistant, Kassie Perkins, graduated with a BSBA in Accounting from Tennessee Technological University on May 9, 2015. Kassie has been a part time employee at McLinc for the past four years. She began working for McLinc after graduating from high school through McLinc’s employee internship program which provides summer employment to children and grandchildren of McLinc employees. Kassie says, “I would like to thank the staff at McLinc for their continuous guidance and mentorship. Studying accounting and being provided hands on experience in the field has given me a greater and more in depth knowledge of my field of study. I am also thankful for the business ethics that have been demonstrated to me daily since I began at McLinc four years ago. It’s been an honor to work with such incredible mentors.” Kassie was among only 30 students from the College of Business to graduate with honors. Kassie plans to attend Tech to obtain a Master’s in Business Administration in the fall.
McLinc congratulates Zach Grainger, son of McLinc Sample Report Coordinator Angela Grainger. Zach graduated from Lenior City High School on May 16. He was a student at the STEM Academy located at Lenior City High School. To be a member of this program, students must take all honors courses, complete 40 hours of community service and keep a high grade point average. Zach was one of only 28 students at LCH to graduate from the STEM Academy. He plans to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Computer Engineering. Zach will begin his journey at Pellissippi Community College in the fall on the Tennessee Promise Scholarship. Zach plans to transfer to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville to finish his degree.
McLinc Summer Intern
McLinc is excited to welcome Lindsay Holt back to our facility for her second summer as an intern. Lindsay is the daughter of McLinc senior chemist, Jeffrey Holt. Lindsay is a student at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City studying Business Administration with aspirations of becoming a small business owner. Lindsay is excited to spend another summer at McLinc to learn more about the business world. She says, “I am constantly learning at McLinc. The senior staff at McLinc are amazing people to work with and to work for. I am learning how to, not only, run a business smoothly in the face of a slowly recovering economy, but also how to treat employees with respect and kindness while ensuring that deadlines are met and services are performed to the best of our abilities.” McLinc is proud to offer a summer internship program for the children of employees that are pursuing higher education.
ETEBA Business Opportunities Conference
This year’s 16th Annual Business Opportunities Conference will be December 8–10, 2015, at the Knoxville Convention Center. McLinc will again furnish bags to each person attending the conference and sponsor a booth in the Exhibit Hall. Please come by and visit us at Booth 304.
The Tennessee Valley Corridor National Summit Celebrates its 20th Anniversary
The Tennessee Valley Corridor National Summit celebrated 20 years of service in May. The conference was held on May 27-28 at East Tennessee State University. This year’s theme for the conference was, “Education Fuels the TVC Economy.” The conference consisted of informational and educational speakers and allowed for networking between the patrons and vendors at the conference. The mission of the Tennessee Valley Corridor is to sustain existing federal missions, compete for new federal investments and leverage these investments to grow more private sector job opportunities.
McLinc has been a part of this mission by sponsoring the TVC Summit annually. This year McLinc awarded an Apple watch as a door prize. Winner of the watch was Dr. Cecile McIntosh, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Professor of Biological Sciences at East Tennessee State University. Congratulations to Dr. McIntosh and to the organizers of the TVC Summit.
Dancing with the Stars
of the Tri Cities
McLinc employee Kassie Perkins will be dancing in the Tri-Cities Dancing with the Stars fundraiser. This event is similar to the Dancing with the Stars television show and focuses on raising funds for SteppenStone Youth Treatment Center in Limestone, Tennessee. Kassie will be among five outstanding women and men in the Tri-Cities area who will be dancing with SteppenStone cofounder Dr. Mike Adler or his wife Kim Adler. Kassie says she is excited to be a part of this exciting and worthwhile fundraiser.
Materials and Chemistry Laboratory, Inc.
Industrial Hygiene and Environmental
• Asbestos
• PCB’s
• Metals
• Beryllium
Specialty
• Uranium
• Highly Corrosive/Reactive Materials
• Method Development
• Radiological
• Waste Treatment
• Industrial Forensics
Microscopy and Characterization
• Scanning Electron Microscopy
• Transmission Electron Microscopy
• Optical Microscopy
• X-ray Diffraction
• Ion Chromatography