Melissa Fauth

INSIGHTS

Melissa Fauth, CEO, Fritsch North America

MELISSA FAUTH is the CEO of North American operations for Fritsch International, the Germany industrial solutions provider that has helped thousands of companies for over a century. Specializing in manufacturing of application-based laboratory instruments and evolving client products and solutions through “micromilling,” Fritsch works from its Pittsboro, North Carolina base with all industries from electronics to automotive materials, hemp to feed crops and meat processing, pharmaceuticals to mining, aerospace, energy and everything in between. They work with universities, government and private research and quality labs, their own global lab, government agencies and private. They create tomorrow’s industrial solutions, often literally on the spot.

STEM TODAY:You’ve loved science and bringing things together since you were young. Tell us about that.

Melissa Fauth: Well, I didn’t have all the opportunities of learning tracks as a kid that young students have today through STEM programs. However, I’ve always loved science, math and engineering, and of course the technologies. I also love to learn, I’m a bookworm, and I love seeing how things come together. I am very passionate about discovering new solutions and solving difficult problems or challenges, and I believe that comes from things I learned as a kid. These are skills, and disciplines, that begin with our early learning. And STEM programs are wonderful at providing what our future tech and innovation leaders need.

ST: What you describe is very similar to what you’re doing now at Fritsch … it sounds like you’re still playing in the proverbial creative sandbox, between bringing people, processes, systems and technologies together — and inventing new products on the spot?

MF: It’s really fun. Everyone is excited about the groundbreaking work they’re doing. There are aspects of milling processes and its applications that can be shared across industries, between institutions and companies, to help each other in different ways. One project combines experience from Fritsch, research from NASA and Los Alamos Engineers, and a battery company, to achieve an objective that the battery company wasn’t able to do prior.

ST: Among other things, you’ve worked on projects for the International Space Station (ISS) — the dream of countless thousands of young science students for decades. What is it like to wake up every day knowing that you and your team created a solution from scratch that NASA couldn’t find anywhere else?

MF: For me, for us all, it’s been an honor to work with NASA and our National Labs; I never could have imagined that. Nor could I have imagined them coming to me and saying, ‘This solution exceeds anything we’ve tried before.’ That means a lot.

PHOTO CREDIT: Melissa Fauth by Fritsch Manufacturing North America

ST: Has your solution for the ISS led to further applications resulting from that work, like many other projects you work on at Fritsch?

MF:Yes. In putting different elemental products and compounds together and running them in the mill, NASA is now able to create new materials in a much more beneficial way. This has led to new applications we’re working together on, like one for Mars with materials for 3D printing.

ST: Finally, one last thing STEM students and all of us dream of, what’s it like going to work every day thinking, ‘I love what I do?’

MF: We get to help people with realworld problems, real-world developments, and reaching the next level in our communities, our societies, and our technology in both earth and space. It’s super fulfilling for all of us, super meaningful. None of us have had this experience at any other place we’ve worked. — R.Y.