Month: May 2024

Originally published on U.S. Bank company blog

As the amount and scope of materials being recycled has grown over the years, so has longtime bank client Napa Recycling.

Napa Recycling began in 1990 and offered curbside recycling and organic composting services, said general manager Greg Kelley. It has expanded over the years to include services for all recyclable products and organic materials, including yard waste and food waste from residential homes and commercial kitchens.

“When we started in 1990, we were processing about 10,000 tons of organics and 15,000 tons of recyclables per year,” Kelley said. “Now, between our two composting sites, we do 300,000 tons of organic waste and 60,000 tons of recyclables.”

Napa Recycling employs 240 people throughout its companies, he said. That includes people who collect recyclables and organic waste, people who process it, people in customer service and more. It serves both residential homes and commercial businesses across different industries.

“The easy part is collecting recyclable material,” Kelley said. “The harder thing is to sort recycling to market specs and to truly recycle something to be used to make a new product.”

The company has seen a lot of innovation in the sorting and processing areas over the years, he said.

“Back in ’90s we were all manual hand-sorting,” Kelley said. “We eventually added screens to separate paper from containers, and now we have air classifiers that use optics to sort, and also have robots that sort. They basically use AI and learn as they go just as a human would.”

There have been innovations on composting organic materials as well, he said.

“We now do aerated composting where, basically, we’re blowing air into our piles 24/7 so it’s actively composting at optimal temperatures for 22 days, where in the past it would take about three months and never be at optimal temps except about 20 minutes a day,” Kelley said. “Not only are we making a better, mature product, we’re cutting emissions into the environment while doing it.”

The composted materials are sold as soil amendments to farmers, he said. Recyclable materials are sold to various manufacturers. For example, recyclable plastics, such as polyethylene terephthalate (known as PET) water bottles, are melted down and made into pellets that are sold to manufacturers to produce new products.

Napa Recycling’s relationship with U.S. Bank began in 2005 with predecessor company Union Bank.

“It’s been a great relationship for our company and our communities,” Kelley said. “The bank has treated us well. With their assistance, we have been able to use California municipal bonds for our major expansions.”

Napa Recycling partners with the U.S. Bank environmental banking group, which is part of Commercial Banking and specializes in serving waste management companies.

“Napa Recycling is a vital community partner providing waste management services, especially recycling and composting, to its communities to meet the State of California’s waste diversion goals,” said Hassan Salem, head of Commercial Banking. “We are happy to continue to support this client’s growth with specialized industry bankers from our Environmental Services Group.”

Napa Recycling also uses U.S. Bank for other services that include accounts payable products, online banking tools, cash management solutions and more, he said.

“The bank has been a great partner for us over the years,” Kelley said.

A team of Molex engineers is working to accurately predict how their connectors will work, down to the individual component level, by using fully functional digital replicas to virtually validate their designs. The innovative use of digital twins will help lower costs, reduce recall risk and speed up the time it takes for a product to make it to market.

Engineers at Molex, a Koch company, are taking the idea of digital twins — fully functional virtual replicas of physical products — to the next level.

The engineers have created models that can accurately predict and virtually validate how parts will work down to the component level — enabling customers to have a much better understanding of how their connectors will function throughout their lifespan before even being put into production. This helps lower costs, reduce recall risk and cut down on the amount of time used on physical testing and revisions.

The implementation and innovation around digital twins at Molex have also led the automotive division to transform the way it operates so it can better utilize the technology’s capabilities and meet the fast-changing needs of leading-edge car manufacturers.

In the past, the engineers who would simulate what would happen with a given design and the engineers testing the designs operated in mostly separate worlds, with one group working away on equations and the other developing and testing physical products. The team at Molex recognized there was an opportunity to combine their efforts using digital twins, forming one predictive engineering team.

“We took the power of simulation and the power of experimentation and combined them,” says Vijy Koshy, a Molex senior director of engineering. “It’s a small group of people we deployed and told your job is to predict the future through physics.”

So far, the team has been able to create a high-fidelity digital twin that can accurately predict and validate a connector’s current rating with 95% accuracy. The model helps eliminate the need for months of physical testing.

And when they do perform physical tests, they’re testing to validate the data predicted by the digital twin, not to see if it meets some specification. With the knowledge the digital twins provide about current rating and other mechanical functions, they’ll create connectors that meet or exceed any other required specifications and work with their customers to come up with solutions to solve the specific challenges they’re facing.

The lessons learned from these early electrical models will also soon be applied to other areas of the connector, such as its mechanical, sealing and thermal functioning. In addition to using these advanced digital twins to develop predictive models for its connectors, Molex is also using them to model and optimize production lines and develop 5G antenna systems for modern cars and trucks.

The knowledge gained is shared with engineers across Molex to improve connector design and reliability wherever they are in the world. Mutual benefit at its best.

STAMFORD, Conn., May 2, 2024 /3BL/ – In recognition of Financial Literacy Month, Webster Bank and YWCA Hartford Region recently celebrated the opening of the Webster/YWCA Hartford Region Finance Lab in Hartford, Connecticut.

The program was created to provide women and girls in YW programs such as YW Career Women and the Young Women’s Leadership Corps (YWLC) with the financial skills and literacy to plan for a future of economic security and long-term self-sufficiency. A $100,000 grant was provided by Webster to fund the programs.

Webster Bank’s partnership with YWCA Hartford Region underscores its commitment to corporate social responsibility and its dedication to making a positive difference in the communities it serves. Webster Bank is actively building a stronger and more resilient community by investing in programs that empower individuals and promote economic vitality.

The Webster/YWCA Hartford Region Finance Lab is part of a signature initiative designed to help Webster’s partners in low- to moderate-income (LMI) communities expand financial empowerment and improve financial literacy for youth and young women.

“Having an understanding of financial skills creates new opportunities for the next generation of youth and families in our community,” said Marissa Weidner, Webster’s Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer. “Our newest Finance Lab collaboration with the YWCA Hartford Region will provide the resources and tools necessary to enable young people and women to make financially sound decisions and drive economic vitality in the region.”

“We thank Webster Bank for believing in and investing in YWCA Hartford Region’s programs and services with this grant to empower women and girls from the Hartford Region,” said Adrienne W. Cochrane, Chief Executive Officer, YWCA Hartford Region. “The financial resources from this grant will lay the foundation and provide essential tools for a solid financial education. These programs will teach participants the value of money and how to save, budget, spend and invest money. They will learn and understand how to create generational wealth.”

Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, State Senator Douglas McCrory, and state elected dignitaries and Commissioners Andrea Barton Reeve, CT Department of Social Services and Board Chair for YWCA Hartford Region joined Webster leaders and YWCA leadership to officially open the programming during an event held at YWCA’s office.

“As Mayor of our capital city, I am proud to see this partnership between Webster Bank and YWCA Hartford Region,” said Mayor Arulampalam. “This grant will directly benefit families in our community by providing education on the core tenets of financial responsibility—debt, budgeting, saving, and investing. We thank YWCA Hartford and Webster Bank for believing in Hartford with a program like this that will uplift women, girls, and their families.”

The YWCA’s Finance Lab location is one of two Webster Finance Labs in Connecticut that will open this year and the fourth to open across the bank’s footprint since the initiative’s inception in 2022. Webster expects to announce plans for additional Finance Lab partnerships with nonprofit partners in Long Island, Rhode Island, and Boston, Massachusetts.

About Webster

Webster Bank (“Webster”) is a leading commercial bank in the Northeast that provides a wide range of digital and traditional financial solutions across three differentiated lines of business: Commercial Banking, Consumer Banking and Healthcare Financial Services, one of the country’s largest providers of employee benefits and administration of medical insurance claim settlements solutions. Webster is a values-driven organization headquartered in Stamford, CT, with $76 billion in assets. Its core footprint spans the northeastern U.S. from New York to Massachusetts, with certain businesses operating in extended geographies. Webster Bank is a member of the FDIC and an equal housing lender. For more information about Webster, including past press releases and the latest annual report, visit the Webster website at www.websterbank.com.

Contact Information

Media Contact:
Alice Ferreira
acferreira@websterbank.com
203-578-2610

Investor Contact:
Emlen Harmon
eharmon@websterbank.com
212-309-7646

YWCA Hartford Region Contact: 
Yvonne Renee Davis 
yvonne@davisworldtraining.com 
860-796-2842

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About YWCA Hartford Region 
YWCA Hartford Region puts our mission of eliminating racism and empowering women into action daily to promote peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all. We offer programs that address the needs of community members at every stage of life and transform the lives of nearly 2000 women, children, and families annually. www.ywcahartford.org.

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