Peter Rim
BLACKSBURG, Va., Sept. 30, 2010 – Peter Rim of Midlothian, Va., professor of chemical engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, was recently appointed the Joseph H. Collie Professor of Chemical Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
The Joseph H. Collie Professorship is awarded for a period of two years to a distinguished visiting professor who has extensive industrial experience and expertise in production, marketing, and sales of chemical products to introduce chemical engineering students to advanced business and marketing concepts in chemicals distribution management.
He is an expert in modern business strategies, product development processes, customer relations in a global society, and quality improvement and control. His background and expertise in both chemical technology and business management are valuable to students who seek careers in the chemical industry.
Rim has more than 25 years experience in the development, commercialization, and marketing of performance polymer products. For the past six years, Rim's responsibility was in the product strategy, development, and commercialization of Performance Fiber’s nearly $1 billion dollar fiber business. He also established cost-effective external research and development capabilities at universities, suppliers, and other programs to supplement the in-house capabilities of Performance Fibers.
Rim is considered a technical patent expert in new technology areas and his name appears on 12 patents and more than 20 technical publications.
From 2000 to 2003, Rim was the company’s Beltec™ Reinforcement Global Development Leader, resulting in the first use of polyester as a full cap ply material in tires. Rim started at what was then Allied Signal in 1987 as a research and development scientist-project leader. In this position he developed several patented polyester products. This work and accompanying commercial support provided Allied Signal and Honeywell with an expansive product portfolio. These efforts provided the platform that allowed the company to expand globally into Europe and Asia, thereby quadrupling the company’s size.
Rim earned a bachelor’s degree in pre-medicine from Penn State University in 1979. He changed fields to polymer science and was awarded his master’s degree and Ph.D. in 1981 and in 1983, respectively, also from Penn State. In 1992 he added an M.B.A. in business from the University of Richmond.
The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college's 6,000 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 2,000 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology. Virginia Tech, the most comprehensive university in Virginia, is dedicated to quality, innovation, and results to the commonwealth, the nation, and the world.