Like many technical colleagues across Univar Solutions, Dr. Erin Burke has a deep love of the chemistry she uses to solve the essential challenges of our purpose – keeping communities healthy, fed, clean, and safe – and finding inspiration in the scientific details and process. But unlike some chemists and R&D experts who may identify as introverts who prefer time spent in the lab versus presenting to a crowd, Dr. Burke is an extroverted multitasker who thrives on face time with customers. As a PhD chemist, she brings this dedicated attention to solving customer challenges into the flagship Houston Solution Center to lead North America technical services and as a key collaborator within the company's network of global Solution Centers.

Each role along her career as a STEM leader has carefully prepared her to help customers navigate the complexities and trends of a diverse marketplace. Looking back on the educational and professional path that brought her to Univar Solutions, Dr. Burke says she can see how each decision honed the unique skills she uses today. From attending a women’s-only undergrad honors program where she minored in leadership to the many years of putting her doctorate in chemistry to work across industry verticals, she brings a consultative approach and deep expertise into her role working side by side with customers, suppliers, and internal teams to create custom solutions.

That collaboration – supporting customers as an extension of their team – is essential to commercial success. "No matter the size or sophistication of the company or facility, we’re here for the entire journey," she says.

We asked Dr. Burke to share ways regional Solution Centers collaborate with customers to solve the challenges of tomorrow.

Given your broad experience across global industries and long project-based R&D experience with so many materials and solutions, you seem almost purpose built for your role leading technical services in North America. What drew you to this challenge?

This position requires a good understanding of the entire chemical market and strong knowledge about specialty ingredients. That’s one of the things that attracted me to the role: I like chemistry so much. I want to know everything there is to know about it and how that chemistry plays into the everyday products I use. I like to see how one ingredient can be used in completely different applications, such as a paint coating, but also in a skin cream. It's fascinating for me to draw relationships between chemical ingredients and what types of products they can be used in, and how that might make our everyday lives a little bit better.

Given our large portfolio of specialty ingredients and chemicals, my sandbox is a lot larger than if I worked for a supplier. There are so many possibilities here. And in this expanded role leading technical services, I enjoy the personal interaction with everyone involved in our technical collaborations, whether they’re customers or suppliers, internal application development specialists or commercial teams, supply chain teams, or outside regulatory experts.

You're a big fan of leading with a consultative approach in the Solution Centers. Tell us more.

Right, I very much like to be that consultant to our customers, and throughout the entire innovation process. The capabilities we have in our Solution Centers can help customers move past the challenges that arise, and it takes active listening and deep conversations to solve these complex and complicated problems. It takes being able to collaborate and connect what our technical teams are wanting to do in the lab and what customers need and then dialing in to make sure we’re serving customers the best way possible.

We can take a little more time here with the customer, develop a relationship with them, through personal interaction and deep conversations that move projects forward toward solutions. The fact that I appreciate the technical and commercial struggles they’re going through forges an additional bond of trust, enabling more long-term relationships and what I call a "stickier" business. People call us back to help solve the next problem.

The Solution Centers – and especially the Houston Solution Center where multiple disciplines and industries are represented – are places within our very large organization where we take the time and make the discussions happen to put the customer into the custom solution. This is where we focus on the customer experience, creating better engagement by getting closer to customer needs and issues. It's important to remember that behind all the chemistry and technical advances and new products are people solving problems together.

The Houston Solution Center opened in 2014 as a state-of-the art R&D center and today is seen as a flagship innovation center and model for new Solution Centers around the globe. How can customers and suppliers take advantage of all these innovation centers have to offer?

The Houston Solution Center is by far the largest facility in our network of global innovation centers, with the most capabilities. The initial investment was tremendous and set up a large space and nicely equipped analytical and testing labs that are still unique and enviable today, giving us a place to gather suppliers and customers with our technical and commercial teams to work side by side on projects. Our tenured teams and commitment to continual process improvements mean we have a nice methodology and model for project success across the globe.

Backed by more than eight years and thousands of projects since inception, we've developed numerous ways for customers and suppliers to engage our experts. Projects can support an end market (such as a new blend or prototype development), serve a specific supplier need (create a new product kit using a new material), or solve a unique customer challenge with fee-based lab and testing services.

Your long tenure in the Houston Solution Center has given you a front-row seat to a litany of trends and industry shifts that your customers face every day. How do you manage the volume of information and the pace of change coming your way?

The short answer is one day at a time, one project at a time. The intense pace and the volume of business in our industry are challenging for everyone, but at the same time our experience learning from those obstacles delivers real value for our customers, both inside and outside Univar Solutions.

Every challenge that comes our way in our Solution Centers requires face time and attention to detail, not only at the technical and lab level, but also at the commercial level.

Sustainability has moved well past trend to a business imperative and now informs nearly every aspect of the value chain. How is this shift reflected in your solutions?

Sustainability is top of mind for every project we take on. In addition to safety, environmental, and efficiency factors, companies must also consider circular economy factors such as waste diversion and social factors such as fair trade. The challenges can be daunting, especially for smaller companies, but a greatly expanded menu of sustainable ingredients and more ways to achieve sustainability metrics mean new opportunities across vertical markets.

In our labs we're using natural enzymes to innovate cleaning products that naturally attack protein-based stains in the laundry and probiotic cleaners to clean and disinfect household surfaces. In beauty and personal care, we've created a solid soap-shampoo-conditioner bar that can lather in the shower and be used three ways and a stick moisturizer – all waterless formulations with the same active ingredients and benefits of water-containing counterparts and all with environmentally friendly packaging.

Another aspect of our work underscores the need for a broader view of sustainability, where we increasingly must balance competing benefits. On the surface, some individual ingredients might seem harsh or unattractive from a sustainability standpoint, but used together in a completely new system, the end product can have tremendous value. For example, our coatings lab turned out a new spray-foam insulation that will help make buildings safer and more sustainable for the long run. Applying the spray foam insulation in the built environment means a well-insulated building that can sustain wide temperature swings, saving more energy and improving sustainability for longer periods compared with previous solutions.

Again, this is where a consultative approach pays off. Our role is to bring forward sustainability factors and features our customers may not have considered, to get them to think about problems and constraints differently while considering multiple solutions.

You mentioned being inspired by the chemistry involved in everyday products. What products can we look forward to because of the Houston Solution Center's work?

So many come to mind. A few that people will be noticing in pharmacy and health care aisles revolve around the growing trend toward more topical analgesics and anesthetics to replace ingestible ones. Targeted to an aging population as well as people of all ages leaning away from systemic drugs, we developed a line of multi-functional solid gels that give formulators a head start in addressing several converging trends. From no-mess, pain-relief sticks to medicated lip balms to under-eye foundations and even sunscreen products, these base formulations are stability and performance tested and can be combined with a range of natural, mineral, and synthetic ingredients to appeal to broader audiences.

We created custom-formulated, aqueous-blend contact lens concentrates that will bring new products to contact lens wearers of all ages, helping ophthalmic formulators to deliver on comfort and convenience in an arena that is expected to grow significantly in the wake of the pandemic. Our food innovation teams are creating new recipes and exciting, new techniques using starches, sugars, and other plant-based ingredients to help make food taste better, last longer, or appeal to more health-conscious consumers. And we're able to use these same ingredients and methods across multiple markets, for example using the same specialty ingredients in food, beauty, and personal care, and even industrial products such as paint and solvents. The strong underlying foundation of our robust analysis and testing accelerates time to market and decreases risk for customers of all sizes and in all applications.

Time to market is so crucial for manufacturers across industries and applications. Beyond new materials and formulations, how are you supporting customers with other production needs?

Once companies create or alter a formula, many customers underestimate the time and care needed to scale up to their production lines. There are key differences between what's made on the bench or in our lab versus what can be made in a plant reactor. We have the production experience and the intermediate equipment in our Solution Centers to assist with this critical need, to ensure these scale-up factors are tried and tested so we can help customers anticipate and mitigate potential line issues.  

This is where our deep conversations and strong team connections really pay dividends for customers. The consultative approach to our work, the relationships we build, and the connections we make keep customers coming back to ask the next question.