Profile
Jarrod Hart
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About Me:
I am a chemical engineer who is helping find sustainable ways to make all the stuff we need – houses, cell phones, cars and so on!
I am also a dad of 3 teenagers 😜
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I studied chemical engineering in Cape Town and have been working in industry for over 25 years now, mainly designing the process for making for new materials – in other words, I design factories. My specialty is converting minerals into useful materials ranging from cell phone batteries to car tyres to cosmetics and drugs.
The industry is at a time of great change as we can no longer make things the way we did in the 20th century, just burning oil and coal to power everything, we have to re-invent materials like plastics and cement to be more sustainable.
Many factories are not “beautiful”, especially is they emit smoke, dust and other pollution. My ambition is to make clean, safe factories that are nice to work at, which make the things we need but also help save the planet.
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My pronouns are:
He/Him 🏳️🌈
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My Work:
I am a technology scout for a materials company, trying to identify cool new (better/stronger/more sustainable) materials.
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I work with universities and startups, but also with many innovative technology companies to ensure we no only use the best available technology, but also to push the limits of what is possible.
We are developing completely new materials, with completely new properties that are not only safer and cleaner, but perform better for our customers. To do this we have a big team of world leading experts in several laboratories. Our biggest slabs are in the UK, France, Austria, Switzerland, the USA and China.
I am lucky that I get to travel the world visiting our labs but also our operations which are in over 40 countries.
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My Typical Day:
I work from home about half the time, but also travel globally for projects.
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For when I am at home, I have a lovely little home office with shelves all around and a two huge monitors. My cats like to join me 🙂
I have several meetings each week, but spend most of my home time researching subjects, corresponding with scientists and helping to design experiments for them to execute in our labs.
I also spend a lot of time analysing the results of those experiments and presenting the findings to the financial people who decide if they will invest in the new technologies.
Then I also travel a lot. I need to meet up with researcher colleagues every month at one of our labs and sometimes do experiments myself, but not so often any more!
Sometimes when we are building a new factory I will go to help with the build and also the factory start-up (which we call in the “commissioning”) which it is one of the most exciting things an engineer gets to do after many years of designing!
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would donate it to a charity that gives internet access to those without, especially in poorer countries, eg in Africa (where I am from!). I believe that money spent in this way delivers 10x the benefits over the long term. One charity that does this is https://giveinternet.org/
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Education:
I went to school in Johannesburg, South Africa where we do 6 subjects for “Matric”, I did Maths, Science, Geography, Art, English and Afrikaans (a language a bit like Dutch).
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Qualifications:
In South Africa we have no qualifications at 16 – for “Matric” I did 6 subjects. I did pretty well, well enough to get a fully paid bursary for university 😅
I then got Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering (a 4 year degree in South Africa)
And finally a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering (a 2-year thesis-based degree in SA) – my thesis was on computer control of factories (a type of AI!)
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Work History:
My first job was delivering newspapers when I was 12. Once while out delivering, I got caught is a hailstorm with hail the size of golf balls!
Right after school I got a job as a waiter in a steakhouse – as I did not have money to go to university, I planned to do this until being drafted to the army (compulsory back then!) – luckily two weeks before the academic year started, I won an “all expenses paid” bursary (which is a scholarship from a private company) to study Chemical Engineering so I quit waitering – I was a terrible waiter, I was scared of the customers! (Luckily as I grew older I got over this, I am less shy now and even give speeches to huge audiences – and love it!)
In my Uni summer holidays I worked at the company that paid for my tuition – they owned a huge laboratory in Joberg, it was a great job and there where around 12 other students also working there so we had a blast.
After university I worked again for the same company for 3 more years – mainly research related to mining. I travelled many countries in Africa but also to Brazil, Peru and Canada visiting mines (copper, gold, platinum, coal, graphite, etc) but also science conferences.
However, after 3 years, I left South Africa and went to work for a small IT startup company in London – this was during what was called the “dot-com boom”. We built things like “shopping baskets” for websites and eventually we designed what was perhaps the very first internet banking service 😁
That was fun, but I missed travelling so I went back to mining and materials, this time more focussed on materials science, I have now worked at the same company for 20 years – though in 7 different roles and 7 different bosses, moving my way up through the ranks to the level of Science and Technology Director. I was also based in the USA for 3 years at one point.
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Employer:
https://imerys.com/
This company provides a range of raw materials for making ceramics, composites, paint, and much more… our products are all around you!
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
The materials nerd!
What did you want to be after you left school?
An engineer, or an artist. Or both really.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Who me? Never! Those secrets are safe with me!
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
I did think of being an epidemiologist (long before Covid made it cool!)
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Electric Light Orchestra (yes, I am old!)
What's your favourite food?
Biltong! (a South African dried meat delicacy)
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
health for me and my family, then, a. musical talent? I wouldn't mind having a less terrible singing voice either:) !
Tell us a joke.
There are two types of people in the world, those who can extrapolate from incomplete data...
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