Kevlar-May she rest in piece

Most of my twenty year working life, from security guard to police officer, I have been encapsulated by a Kevlar bullet proof vest.  Its probably the single piece of equipment that every officer anywhere in the country has in common, no matter what his/her assignment, duty or rank.  I really didn't think about it past, hoping that it was true to its advertising and would actually stop a bullet as it was intended to.

Stephanie Kwolek was the inventor of Kevlar when she was a Dupont Scientist in the 1960's.  I should have thanked her when she was alive, instead I'll pay my respects.

The article I found in the USA Today dated June 20, 2014
Author: Aaron Nathans, Wilmington (Del.) News Journal
The Link USA TODAY

Kevlar inventor Stephanie Kwolek, 90, dies

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Stephanie Kwolek, the DuPont scientist whose invention, Kevlar, has saved countless lives as the essential ingredient in body armor, has died.

Kwolek died Wednesday in Talleyville, Delaware following a brief illness, said her friend, Rita Vasta, who is handling Kwolek's affairs. She was 90.

Kwolek had no remaining family, Vasta said.

"We are all saddened at the passing of DuPont scientist Stephanie Kwolek, a creative and determined chemist and a true pioneer for women in science," DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman said in a written statement Thursday. "Her synthesis of the first liquid crystal polymer and the invention of DuPont Kevlar highlighted a distinguished career."

Kwolek developed Kevlar, a substance five times stronger than steel, by spinning fiber from a liquid crystalline solution. Kevlar's lightweight, durable qualities have made it a long-lived material used in body armor and other protection equipment used by police and the military.

The discovery came in the mid-1960s when Kwolek was 42, working at DuPont's Experimental Station outside of Wilmington to develop a super-strong fiber to reinforce radial tires.

She invented a solution of rigid-chain polymers that fell from her lab spatula like water. The substance was much thinner than most polymers, and when put into a machine could be spun into strong, stiff material.

She told The News Journal in 2007 that DuPont management "didn't fool around. They immediately assigned a whole group to work on different aspects. ... It was very exciting, let me tell you."

Kevlar's use over time broadened to other applications, including sporting equipment, as it minimizes vibration and can bend without shattering. DuPont recently agreed to serve as a sponsor of the ESPN X Games, where sporting equipment makes liberal use of Kevlar. DuPont will celebrate Kevlar's 50th anniversary next year.

News of Kwolek's death came a day after DuPont Protection Technologies announced that a million bullet-resistant vests have been sold using DuPont Kevlar XP since that version of the product was launched in 2008. Today, most police agencies have adopted mandatory vest requirements.

"When you think about what she has done, it's incredible. There's literally thousands and thousands of people alive because of her," said Ron McBride, former manager of the Kevlar Survivors' Club, a not-for-profit partnership between DuPont and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The group has documented 3,200 lives saved through use of Kevlar in body armor.

McBride is a former chief of police in Ashland, Kentucky. A vest with Kevlar saved the life of his son, who was serving as a naval operative in Iraq.

"She could look back on her life and say, 'Yeah, I made a difference,' " he said.

Kwolek held just a bachelor's degree from the institution that preceded Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh when she joined DuPont as a chemist in 1946.

Coming from humble roots, and having studied in a one-room schoolhouse, she found an opportunity at DuPont because many men were in the military at the time.

"She was stubborn, she clung on, and she did the work because she found it interesting," said Caroline Angel Burke, project manager at the Museum of Science in Boston, which chose Kwolek as one of a handful of engineers featured in a permanent exhibit.

Kwolek, who stood just 4 feet 11 inches tall, never married.

"In those days for chemists, when you're hot on the trail of something, there's not a lot of time to go dating," Vasta said. "She loved outdoor sports, she had plenty of friends, she socialized. But when it came to lab work, that was 100 percent of her focus."

Vasta, who counted Kwolek as a mentor when they both worked at DuPont in the 1980s, said Kwolek continued to develop Kevlar over the years before her retirement in 1986. She went on to mentor women who wanted to go into the sciences, Vasta said.

Kwolek got a nice lab at DuPont after the discovery, but recognized she was in the company of many other distinguished scientists, Vasta said. Kwolek always said that DuPont compensated her properly for her discovery, Vasta said.

In the 2007 interview, Kwolek was careful to take credit only for the initial discovery of the technology used in the development of Kevlar, crediting the team for taking it further, especially DuPont scientist Herbert Blades.

Kwolek was proud whenever first responders approached her to tell her that her vest saved their life, Vasta said.

In 1996, Kwolek won the National Medal of Technology "for her contributions to the discovery, development and liquid crystal processing of high-performance aramid fibers, which provide new products worldwide to save lives and benefit humankind." She was only the third DuPont scientist to win a National Medal of Technology or Science, Kullman said.

"She leaves a wonderful legacy of thousands of lives saved and countless injuries prevented by products made possible by her discovery," Kullman said.

In Kwolek's later years, she enjoyed being in her home, Vasta said. She left behind her lab notebooks, and "oh my gosh, they're like literary pieces," she said, noting her fluid handwriting and sketches.

Kwolek was inducted into the the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women on March 27.

Kwolek kept spools of Kevlar fabric at her home, she told The News Journal in 2007. "I never in a thousand years expected that little liquid crystal to develop into what it did," she said.

(Contributing: Maureen Milford)

Oh and just for fun...

Motivation Part 3

We had a major incident that occurred almost two decades ago in which our town was linked to the crime but we were never able to discover where the crime had actually took place. A number of the affected departments set up an informal task force in order to solve the crime, but the leads were just not there and it went cold.

Recently the lead department received new evidence that pointed to a hitherto unknown suspect. They came to our department and coordinated with our investigation division to pickup and go speak with this new suspect.

So three-fourths of patrol is in the break room eating lunch, watching NASCAR on the flat screen television, when a senior member of our command staff walks by the room pushing a double-decker food cart. We let that go. A short time later he returns with a bunch of pizza boxes on the cart. The smart-mouth of our group, says, “Hey boss, that for us?”. He chuckles and says no. Then he and the cart disappear into the elevator and he goes up a couple of floors to the dick's offices. He and the cart return empty handed, followed by a return trip that contained drinks and finally a dessert run.

Right after the dessert run, the on-duty shift Sargent pops up and we ask him if any of the pizza that is going to our investigators and the outside department personnel is going to find its way to us. He tells us that he had not heard of the pizza and then walks out of the room. A short time later, he returned and said, yes there is pizza (like we would not recognize pizza as it went past us) but no, it was not for us. I then point out that it would take maybe 2 or at the most 3 pizzas to feed patrol and after they had bought all the other ones, how much more would it really cost to do that. A conversation soon breaks out between the three of us in patrol and the Sargent, in which we eventually concluded that in the command staffs' mind we are not worth the cost of three pizzas. I concluded the conversation by stating, “Well I for one am glad to know my actual dollar amount worth to the department. Now I can go get replacement insurance and know I am not going to overpay.” We all laugh and hit the street.

Fast forward to the next day and I am speaking now to the shift lieutenant about a different matter, when the same Sargent from the day before walks up. The lieutenant then says, “Oh that reminds me I found out about that pizza thing from yesterday.”

I think, crap, I shot my mouth off and irritated someone enough that the Lt is involved. The lieutenant then says, “If it makes you feel any better, our detectives didn't get any pizza either, they had to buy their own lunch. That was just for the officers that came in from the outside for this case.”

The Sargent and I just stare at our Lieutenant waiting for his mental bulb to light up. A few beats later it does. He sighs and states, “Wait, I think that worse. It means we care much more about a bunch of strangers we will never see again, then the actual people that work here. It makes you feel all warm and gooey inside.” And with that final statement the pizza topic was permanently shelved as an approved conversational topic.

I guess going down on the sinking boat is a little more comforting when you have company on that cruise, but then again I think we all would rather not be sinking in the first place.

Motivation Part 2

     Anyone that has read this blog for any amount of time quickly realizes that I hate traffic enforcement. Unless I need a reason to stop a load of gang bangers or a drug load, I really hate pimping the general public on silly traffic nonsense.

     The problem with my attitude is that in patrol it is an expected part of my duty day. So I decided to refocus myself now that I am back in patrol and at least fulfill my basic patrol duties.  We, as a department, are currently having a problem with our county. The court fees keep getting raised and the judges are feeling sympathetic to our traffic offenders because the fees are double the maximum possible ticket fine.  As a local department only get a percentage of the fine and nothing of the court fees. The judges are still finding the traffic offenders guilty but instead of the max fine they are taking it all the way down to twenty, ten and in one case, five dollar fines. The bottom line is the county is making bank on all of our work.

    Our administration, rightly, decided to try to keep as many tickets within the city as is possible, so that we can reap the work of our hands rather than the county. This making sense, I dedicated myself to local ordinance, equipment and parking tickets. Fast forward a year and I am getting my annual review. I have full points. Further, he lets me know that he is pleasantly surprised that I am second on my shift in total tickets written, knowing full well that it was not a passion of mine.

     However, sheepishly my Sargent, lets me know that there is one thing we have to talk about. He goes on to say that he was asked to do an audit of the total traffic stops for the department. In that audit, I am the last one on the shift in total traffic stops. So he asks me nicely, to commit to more traffic stops. I then foolishly ask if he is going to talk to anyone else about this ticket/traffic stop issue. He tells me no. So I say, “Okay, you are not going to talk to the guys who wrote less tickets than I did because they did more traffic stops than I did.”

    He says, “yes”. 

     I then ask, “But didn't our Chief rightfully say we needed to write as many as local ordinances as we possibly could. So if I write more of my tickets as moving violations, the city will get less money.”

    He responded, “Yep, that was my take away from that conversation. But remember making traffic stops, not just writing tickets are an important part of your job.”

   

I rejoin, “But hasn't every study from the seventies till now shown that traffic stops have little to no effect on the public's driving behavior?”. He again nods yes. I finish with, “So if I understand this, I need to do more of a thing that doesn't change the public behavior or increase safety, does not raise money for the city just to hit a magic number that someone above you has arbitrarily set, that we don't know what that is? When they have asked us to do the exact opposite, via roll call training, email, and personal visits to roll call?” He sighs, give me the shoulder shrug, that universally indicates, look its not my idea I just have to tell you about it.

    I let him know that I certainly would make more stops and just walked away shaking my head. Policy is the right thing to follow, you know, until they don't want you to follow their policy. Fun on the job.