- The exciting part about what I do is every day I get up is different.

We enable unique cutting edge technology that people don't even realize.

Every microchip produced is produced on materials and with the help materials made right here in this facility in Duryea, Pennsylvania.

(gentle piano music) Schott is a glass and materials manufacturer on a global scale.

We make unique materials, technical glasses for use in a multitude of applications.

- The application spaces that we play in, medical, defense, space, aviation, they're not easy.

They're not easy problems to solve.

- You have to be creative because we're trying to solve problems that nobody has solved before, in many instances.

And so, there's a real advantage and an excitement to looking at something differently than how someone else has looked at it in the past.

And as a scientist, that's what makes me excited about what I do every day.

- Our products are used to make microchips, are used to make guidance systems for aircraft, are used to make laser fusion devices, which will provide an endless supply of green energy.

Our facility here in Duryea, Pennsylvania has been operations since 1969.

We are principally the advanced optics facility.

We also host the largest R&D facility outside of Germany within the Schott organization.

- I oversee 22 individuals that are trying to change the world through new products.

- The day-to-day as a scientist here is a lot of fun.

It's very challenging, it's really interesting.

We are working on problems from understanding deeply the science of how atoms are connected in a glass through to how you do scale up and produce thousands of pieces of something that's gonna end up in somebody's hands.

And we're very fortunate, I think, to be co-located with the manufacturing division.

When you're talking about developing a laser glass that's extremely high performing and now you need to produce hundreds of slabs of it.

To go from that at a research and development scale to a large manufacturing scale, it's not trivial and the site does things like that very well.

- One of the biggest points of pride is every time I wear this shirt with the Schott logo, I think about the legacy of Schott.

We were established in 1884 by Ernst Abbe, Carl Zeiss and Otto Schott.

We were established to solve a problem of accurately reproducing optical glasses so you can mass produce things like microscopes and telescopes.

Legend has it that in the mid '60s, some of the largest manufacturers of optical glass in the United States were getting out of the optical glass melting industries.

The United States Air Force approached the management at Schott in Germany and asked if they would consider opening a facility in the United States and hence, we have the facility in Duryea, Pennsylvania.

Duryea was chosen because it had an ample supply of hardworking individuals.

It was in close proximity to New York and because of routes 80 and 81 transportation wasn't a problem.

The big draw to Northeastern Pennsylvania in the '60s, when Schott was looking to come here, is the fact that the mining industry had just declined, okay?

The German management recognized the hardworking people that live in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

The technological expertise that they were able to do and the skillsets that we were able to bring.

- What I've experienced over the last 14 years is some of the most creative and innovative people I've ever met in my life.

- I think the culture here is such that everyone gets really excited about it because we care.

We care really deeply about what we're doing.

- We produce active laser glass.

The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Labs for the first time was able to prove laser fusion a couple years ago.

Once this is commercialized, it'll be a endless supply of green energy.

That, to me, is really exciting.

We're gonna have a hand in providing the energy of the future.

- Schott in the future looks very different than it does today, as these materials evolve, there are plenty of applications that are emerging in semiconductor packaging to commercial fusion, space.

So there's a number of applications, whether it's satellites, whether it's exploration, whether it's vehicle transport.

- Every day people touch our products at least seven times before they go to bed.

Or touch things that our products enable and they don't even realize it.

Whether it's the black cooktop in your kitchen, whether you go for surgery and you have a lighting source to help you with that endoscopy.

Whether you fly in an aircraft and use a guidance system or whether it's the chip in your phone, that's the stuff that we help to enable.

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