And now I'm on location at MSD Pilkington at its new innovative Flow glass plant in Lucky Ohio to discuss the evolution in glass technology and industry.

And the study group is one of the world's largest manufacturers of glass and glazing products for the architectural, automotive and typical glass sectors.

In 2006, the NSG group acquired Tetley ten, renowned for the invention of the flow glass process, which revolutionized the world's glass industry.

So now let's go meet two men who know an incredible amount about glass innovation.

Guys, it's great to be here today next day.

Christine, thank you for coming.

It's an honor and a pleasure for us to have you here with us today.

Kristi K.: So today we're talking an awful lot about the glass industry and its transformation.

So what have you seen since the first day you started work today?

Why don't we talk about this plant and some of the products?

Steven Weidner: Many, many change.

It's almost a night and day transformation and the technology and the way glass is manufactured and the way glass is used in the way glass is fabricated.

So many, many changes over the 43 years I've been in the business.

Kristi K.: So we talk about that now, specifically when we look at some of the industrial pioneers and those who really started companies in the Midwest way back in the day in the 1800s, let's say, how has the the seeds that they have planted really impacted business today?

Steven Weidner: Well, our company started in 1918, but our DNA in the glass business really goes back over 200 years to a company founded in St Helens, England.

So our company has been in existence for over 200 years here in the United States since the 1890s.

So we've got a long history in glass.

And traditionally the products that we've made have been Windows, windows for either automotive applications or residences or specialty applications for transportation, commercial buildings and so on and so forth.

And what you're looking at today is a facility that we founded and started up in December of 2020.

And this is a brand new technology.

We've transformed what just used to be window glass into what we're going to talk about a flat, transparent wire.

So the technology is completely different, even though the form looks the same, the form factor and the technology is radically different than what we started with 100 or 200 years ago.

Kristi K.: Kyle, you're the business development manager for NASA.

Pilkington Talk to us about some of the transformation in the glass industry that you have seen and some of those that are the most significant.

Kyle Sword: Yeah, for sure.

Thanks.

Thanks again for coming today.

We're really happy to have you.

So our business here in Toledo started as a plate glass manufacturer.

We were one of the three key elements needed for skyscraper construction.

You needed air conditioning, you needed elevators, and you needed polished plate glass to be able to withstand wind blows at high temperature.

So we started off just being a transparent product that people look through.

And over the last 100 years here, now that product is starting to add functionality and needed to have a different additional demand.

So if you go into the grocery store, the freezer door doesn't frost up.

It's because there's a transparent coating that heats that glass up.

There's now glass that manages the heat ingress and the air conditioning load.

There's glass that's dynamic that switches and there's actually transparent glass or windows that generates power, you know, So it's like a transparent solar cell that's on the side of a building.

There's all sorts of these new technologies that are coming out that have all this different demand of products.

It's not just about the way it looks and that it's transparent.

It's actually a transformative component to a lot of high tech products that people just are not aware of, that we produce data.

Kristi K.: For sure.

Steven Weidner: Kristi, that technology was developed and cultivated incubated here in Toledo.

So the glass that you see behind us has a very thin film of metallic oxide, 100 times thinner than your hair.

But if you take your hair and you slice it 100 times, that's the thickness of the coatings that we put on it.

So they're transparent, but they conduct electricity.

And so I tell people, I tell our employees and I tell our customers we don't make glass.

We actually make a flat transparent wire that we can either push current into a device such as what Kyle was talking about with Electrochromic that allow glass to change from clear to dark to manage the amount of energy coming through or glare control or things like that.

Or we can pull current out of a device such as in photovoltaic panels.

So if you think the sun's energy is transmitted through our glass and absorbed by the semiconductor materials inside a portable peg panel where you need to harvest that energy out of the panel.

And our glass is the wire that pulls the current out of the device and creates that flow of electrons.

Kristi K.: So, Kyle, I know we talked a little bit before about some of the supply companies and First Solar being one of the companies in supply for their products and services.

What are some of the other companies that you supply and some of the products and some of the things that they're doing that are really impacting and really extending some of that reach?

Kyle Sword: So we still supply a lot into residential and commercial construction.

We supply First Solar, we supply a couple other dozen companies that do different types of photovoltaic.

So this can be from the regular solar cells that you see from the little tiny solar cells that are maybe out in your garden to the transparent window, solar cells to even these low power generation ones that run some of the signage and like grocery stores and stuff like that.

We supply a lot of companies that do electrochromic send different types of switchable products.

We supply to almost every company that supplies into the commercial refrigeration market hundreds and hundreds of these little small technologies that are starting off.

And again, as you said, we're not this, you know, dirty glass manufacturer.

You're shoveling dirt every day.

We're essentially an electronics component manufacturer at a large scale that supplies a number of different technology companies.

It's really exciting to be a part of that sort of growth and that we have a technology that really makes a bigger impact.

Kristi K.: So, Steve, tell us, how has Glass really changed our world?

Steven Weidner: Well, we use it hundreds of times every day, if not thousands of times.

You look through windows, you use glass to cook on your countertop or on the oven door, the electrochromic windows that they go from clear to dark, all the windows in your car, plane trains, all the transportation.

So it's a very ubiquitous material that's used in a very wide and broad range of different applications.

Kristi K.: And then, Kyle, last question for you, if you could write a personified legacy for Glass, what would it say.

Kyle Sword: Personified Legacy for Glass?

That's a great question.

I think for me is this would be the Thomas Edison of products.

This is something that has a complete transformative ability to change the industry, to change and create new industries, to change people's lives.

And it's one that people just take for granted because it's used in so many different places.

Kristi K.: Kyle, Steve, thank you so much for being on Business Life 360.

I can't think of two better people to talk to us about the transformation of glass.

Steven Weidner: Thank you.

Kristi K.: Yes.

Steven Weidner: Thank you.

I appreciate you coming today.

Kristi K.: Thank you.