14 - The ‘Plastics’ of the 1980s

Summary

You can't build a reputation on what you’re going to do.

—Confucius

Not that every seasonal shift brings about dramatic new beginnings and change, but the spring of 1981 held significant impact for both the immediate and long-term trajectory of the world.

Amid a major economic downturn—with inflation at 10.35 percent and home mortgage rates cresting at over 18 percent—Ronald Reagan became president, 3M launched Post-it notes, and the first (and soon to be last) stainless-steel DeLorean cars took to the roadways of America.

The first Space Shuttle—Columbia—blasted off for the thermospheric layer of the atmosphere, Iran released its American hostages after 444 days, Mohammed Ali retired, and a heretofore relatively unknown woman named Lady Diana Spencer married longtime bachelor Prince Charles of England.

Yet, within that turbulent and troublesome time, recent college grad Jim “Kizzy” Kizielewicz was thinking about a movie from 1967 starring a young Dustin Hoffman. The movie was titled The Graduate.

In the film, Hoffman plays Benjamin Braddock, a twenty-one-yearold recent college graduate himself, as he looks to find direction in his life. The central plot in the award-winning flick revolved around Benjamin having an affair with the much older wife of his father's business partner, but Kizzy, the newly minted Hamilton College alum, was pondering a scene in which another neighbor, identified only as Mr. McGuire, seeks Benjamin out to provide some career advice.

“I want to say just one word to you,” McGuire says to Benjamin in hushed tones.

“Yes, sir … “ replies Benjamin.

“Are you listening?” McGuire insists.

“Yes, I am,” says Benjamin.

And McGuire leans in as if delivering the launch codes for a nuclear weapon.

“Plastics,” he says before nodding knowingly.

“Exactly how do you mean?” asks a slightly befuddled Benjamin.

“There's a great future in plastics,” nods Mr. McGuire. “Think about it. Will you think about it?”

Benjamin agrees to think about plastics. And Mr. McGuire struts away, convinced he's set the young man on a path to prosperity.

In 1967, plastics represented a bold new frontier. Nowhere near a time when there would be a literal island of plastic garbage roughly the size of a smallish continent floating around atop the ocean, instead, plastics in 1967 were poised, at least in a corporate sense, to explode. So, finding a job that involved plastics could indeed launch a career.