Finland 2023

May 25, 2023

Day 9 and 10 – Last days and returning home

Day 9 and 10 – By Gianna Wessler, Weston Cregger and Cori Sutton The prior night, NC State and TAMK students and professors enjoyed each other’s company over some karaoke. After an early two hour bus ride from Tampere to Helsinki airport, several student groups set out to explore more of Finland’s capital. The afternoon consisted… 

May 23, 2023

Day 8 Part 2 – TAMK University and city of Tampere

Day 8 Part 2 – by Bryanna Lawry, Sami Anthony, Sarah Singer and Brynn Price We arrived at TAMK to a smiling Ulla Haggblom, our host at TAMK. Ulla led us into building six of the campus straight into the cafeteria.  In Ulla’s words, we had a “true Finnish lunch” and were directed to fill… 

May 18, 2023

Day 8 Part 1 – Metsa Board Tako Mill

Day 8 Part 1 – by Tom Zarszynski, William Pearson, Ryan Walters, Luke Griffin After an exciting stay in Jyväskylä, we arrived in Tampere around 7 AM last night. Students were able to enjoy the city and catch up on sleep since we did not have to be at the mill until 10 AM or… 

May 17, 2023

Day 7 –  Valmet Rautpohja and JAMK University, Tampere

Day 7 – by Varun Atree, Caleb Smith, Mason Broadway, Samuel Webb Today we started off the day by checking out of the hotel by 8:30 AM. We then took the short ride to the Valmet plant and were ready for presentations by 9:00 AM. The first presentation was about SPINNOVA, an up and coming… 

May 16, 2023

Day 6 – Valmet Rautpohja

Day 6 – by Sky Johnson, Sophia Mills and Josh Carter On our final full day in Jyväskylä, we toured Valmet’s Rautpohja facility here in the town. This facility is home to some of Valmet’s top research for improvement in the papermaking process as well as their design center for some of the equipment that… 

May 16, 2023

Day 4 and 5 – Free Weekend in Jyväskylä and Sauna Boat

Day 4 and 5 – by Gigi Gauthier Saturday: After months of anticipation of “sauna” paired with “boating” per Dr. Byrd, the day had finally come. We had a casual morning in the hotel and most of the group opted to go on a trail walk before loading the bus and heading to the pier… 

May 14, 2023

Day 3 – Sappi Kirkniemi Mill

Day 3 – by Lucy Huitt, Hannah Getsee, Ian Seidel, and Trae Knight Our third morning in Finland started later than the previous, as we departed for the Sappi Kirkniemi Mill around 10 o’clock. Despite some overslept alarms, we made decent time to Lohja and took some group photos outside the facility. When we entered… 

May 12, 2023

Day 2 – Aalto University and Valmet Järvenpää Pilot Plant

Day 2 – by Gracelynn Woods Our second full day in Finland started off once again with an amazing breakfast in our hotel. After we finished breakfast, and some technical issues with the bus were fixed, we quickly made our way over to Aalto University, just a short drive from the hotel. At the university,… 

May 11, 2023

Day 1 – Valmet Fiber Technology Center/Boat Cruise

Day 1 – by Wallace Layman The PIE trip kicked off with a tour of the Inkeroinen, Valmet Fiber Technology Center near Kouvola, Finland. This 151 year old site has 12 employees that work with customers to pilot various operations prior to bringing a process to a commercial site to solve various customer process problems.… 

May 10, 2023

Initial Travel Day Report

by Aidan Stewart For the 18 of us that started in Raleigh, we started convening around 9:30 am for a 10 am departure on an NC State bus. We arrived at Charlotte Douglas International Airport shortly before 1 pm and proceeded to gather and wait for the Lufthansa check in desk to open at 2:30 pm.…