Polymer Profile: Shaun Pirtle, Senior Technical Service Engineer, Competency Advisor

A Customer-Centric Focus

There are many constituents Shaun serves on a daily basis. He engages Shell Polymers’ commercial team and customers to ensure the former will be supplying the latter with the correct products. He also supports the sales team through product design and commercialization. Shaun is also involved in technical support for customers and works on product development and testing.

Shaun is helping install three commercial-scale blown film lines in the innovation center and application hall at the Monaca, PA plant. That equipment will allow the Shell Polymers team to evaluate competitive products and run customer evaluations at the facility so that converters don’t need downtime for testing using their own equipment.

Our application hall is designed around making our converters’ lives easier and making their experience with a supplier as seamless as it should be. It’s an available resource for guidance and collaboration.

"We are focusing on being customer-centric, so we will be able to provide timely support and product recommendations that will incentivize sales for our products by creating value and solving problems of clients in unique and innovative ways," according to Shaun.

Reinvention Equals ROI

Shaun has experience in evolving best practices to reach new heights. Once, while working with a film supplier, he and his team moved the client from the middle of the pack to becoming a very profitable front-runner in the industry.

How did Shaun’s team do that? “We redesigned, reengineered, and reformulated everything, and ended up with a highly focused and financially positive business that we were all very proud of,” Shaun says.

The determination for such end results resonates throughout the Shell Polymers’ team. From sales to Customer Relationship Coordinators to tech experts, each of our employees has a vested interest in converters’ growth and helping fuel that growth for years to come. Our people are here with converters for the long run -- we know that their business needs to evolve, and we are ready to evolve alongside them. Our people have the industry knowledge, experience, and backing to keep their best interests in mind.

Quality Comes From Questioning

Customers should always ask questions. Not to be nosy, but to understand the benefit they’re receiving. “Question everything, especially what value your current supplier is providing to you,” Shaun says. “Do they have the correct answers, and do they respond the way you would like to be treated?”

Shaun is already attracting and addressing the curiosity of customers as the plant’s opening looms near. Customers are asking him about Shell Polymers’ portfolio of products and how they’ll run as a supplier, among other questions. The Shell Polymers team is ready for such questions. In constructing the Monaca facility, we left no stone unturned. That means all plant features and logistics-related procedures are designed to help us deliver high-quality product every time. What might seem like a small detail to some is a very strategic decision on our part.