I am not a "Scientist" in the conventional sense of the word. Many years ago Dr. Tony Challis a real "Scientist", then President of The Plastics Institute and the dearest of my mentors told me that the Science Council in UK will consider recognition for persons who had learnt their technology and science "empirically" rather than through the academic route. This was similar to the way I had been elected Fellow of the Plastics Institute in 1976, thanks to Tony and John Ratcliffe, retired Secretary General of The plastics Institute.

For the record, as many who know me, I consider myself more of an Empirical Engineer, a Plastic Engineer to be precise. I learnt all I know about the theory of plastics in Indian, UK & US libraries. The practice (processing) of plastics I learnt on the shop floors of factories in India and UK.

During my time on three Continents and umpteen facilities plus many mistakes I started to understand the Rheology of Plastics Materials. All this experience enabled me to assist in the better design, application and processing of plastics. My three years in the Army with the Royal Electric & Mechanical Engineers (REME now IEME) in Bangalore and Hyderabad helped me to understand the fundamentals of tooling without which many plastic products would not be possible.

My Mother was my greatest teacher, she never got angry when I made a mistake, all she said was "it's God's will" but if you make the same mistake again ask someone else why and then you will not make a mistake because God does not know all the things you are interested in. Most important she said always keep trying and never give up if you believe it is right and it will not hurt someone by your trying. "Don't be afraid to ask" she often said.

ASKING  is what helped me to get my first patent on the bonding of dissimilar materials. Listening to a Professor John Mulligan at Stanford on DNA purification and sequencing (Latin & Greek to me back in 1989) helped me to develop the Unifilter TM Filter Microplate that is used in Packard and Perkin & Elmer Instruments worldwide.

LISTENING  to many scientists like Dr. John Seed, Dr Al Kolb, Dr Comely and many more in Biophrama’s in UK and USA; designers like Martyn Rowlands, Kenneth Grange, Bill Hannon; toolmakers like Eric Wheeler, John Harvey and Steve Young. They all helped in so many ways to make me a practical "scientist".

LOOKING for answers in the most unlikely places and believing anything is possible was something I learnt from my friend of 40+ years John Parfitt, like reading Rudyard Kipling to know when one must be humble and accept defeat and find a new road or a way to wherever.

Most of all it is that God has given me a gift of being curios and always wanting to know WHY & HOW something is done, and as my mother said "Don't be afraid to ask".

In the final analysis I am thankful to many of my colleagues, clients, customers, employers around the world who had the patience to answer my relatively naive questions and entrusted me with their technical problems and ASKED. You must all have had a mother like mine!  Thank you all for this honour for those who speak British English and honor for those in America. No man can do anything on his own!

- Roy L. Manns C.Sci, FIMMM, FRS