Industry Tour By Kyle Harris & Sam Slaughter

On Thursday, February 3, the Youth Leadership Class attended a Chamber breakfast at the Charter House Inn, followed by a tour of various industries throughout the Bainbridge area.

To begin the day, a current Steering Committee member received an award for school wide achievement. Tad Young (left pic) received the STAR Student award for Grace Christian. This award is based on SAT Score, and is awarded to the student in each senior class with the highest SAT Test score. For Bainbridge High School, David Golladay (right pic), a Youth Leadership Graduate, won the award. 

After breakfast, the class boarded a bus to begin the tour. Our tour started at Danimer Scientific led by Phil VanTrump. Danimer produces a compostable plastic for use in items such as table ware, film resins, and injection molded materials. We toured their testing location, production floor, and the laboratory. Mr.VanTrump explained the process at Danimer. They produce their compostable plastics using various chemical processes.

Following the walk through of Danimer, we made our way to their sister company Meredian. There we. were greeted by Sean Schuyler who gave us an explanation of the process involved at Meredian, where they use bacteria fed by various oils to produce a truly biodegradable plastic. This plastic is broken down over time by microorganisms in the ground.



 

From Meredian we traveled to Memorial Hospital. Here we took part in a tour of the facilities and a presentation given by Dr. Walker. Dr. Walker gave an overview of the functions of our hospital, followed by a question and answer session. Our tour included the respiratory therapy, women's center, intensive care unit, radiology, surgical department, and laboratory. Upon completing our tour, we enjoyed lunch provided by the hospital cafeteria.



After completing our meal we once again loaded on the bus to go to the new Student Wellness Center at Bainbridge College. We were given a tour by Justin Gravlee. Our tour began with the gymnasium where there is a regulation basketball court set up for college league games. This state-of-the-art gymnasium is equipped with floating floors, much like the gymnasium at the new Bainbridge High School facility. We were then shown the various areas of the new facility including the fully equipped weight & exercise room, game room, food court, book store, aerobics rooms, classrooms, and a computer lab with 50+ computers. We completed our walk through on the upstairs track which is 1/9 of a mile long before boarding the bus for the final time to complete our day back at the Charter House.

Overall the tour was an informative experience that allowed the leadership students to catch a glimpse of the industries and businesses of our community. The students and the steering committee appeared to enjoy the trip, and appreciate the members of the various organizations who assisted us throughout the day.