An October 28th fundraising dinner at Rutgers University raised $110,000 to revitalize packaging engineering studies in the University’s School of Engineering. The fundraising event, organized by the Rutgers Packaging Engineering Advisory Board, drew more than 100 participants including packaging industry executives, Rutgers officials and a large contingent of students from the School of Engineering.

The contributions raised by the Advisory Board are earmarked for curriculum development, faculty recruitment, research and development, and student scholarships and internships. The Advisory Board is also undertaking an ambitious fundraising effort to establish a professorship endowed chair of packaging engineering at Rutgers. The goal is to raise $1.5 million from regional companies and suppliers in the packaging industry.

“An endowed chair will give Rutgers packaging engineering a solid legitimacy in the academic arena,” said Charles Chang, Advisory Board chair and president of Topline Products. “It will enable the program to undertake significant research and development initiatives in packaging engineering and will leverage additional funding from other sources as well.”

According to Professor Hae Chang Gea, who heads packaging engineering at Rutgers, the revitalization of packaging engineering is necessary as nearly 100 percent of all products are packaged. “As a result of Rutgers University’s reputation and history, the packaging engineering program will have the base, the building, the machinery, the materials, the clientele and the backing of seven other engineering departments to revitalize itself and set it on a path toward future advancement,” he said.

The October 28th dinner, which is slated to become an annual event, surpassed its fundraising goal with the help of many industry sponsors including Bayer HealthCare, Equity Packaging, Topline Products, Cultech, Estée Lauder, InterParfums and L’Oréal Paris. In addition to these and other companies, the Rutgers Packaging Engineering Advisory Board membership includes representatives from Avon, Bristol Myers Squibb, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Mally Beauty, HCP-USA Packaging, Pfizer, Coty, Mary Kay, and Revlon.

For more information about packaging engineering at Rutgers, contact Professor Hae Chang Gea at 732.445.0108 or visit: http://soe.rutgers.edu/packaging. For more information about the Rutgers Packaging Engineering Advisory Board, contact Charles Chang at 973.785.1600.