Paulson Names Karen Paulson As New President

Karen Paulson is the new president of Paulson Training Programs, the provider of technical training for the plastics industry. She’s taking over from out-going president Craig Paulson. Karen’s new post makes her the first female president of this plastics training company, a company founded by her father, and veteran educator, Donald Paulson.

After graduating Quinnipiac College, Summa Cum Laude, with a double major in math and computer science, Karen began her professional career in the graphics department of Paulson Training. Here, she created animations and developed the study guides for Paulson’s interactive lessons. This was the late 80s in the era before computers were used to create layouts and where each page of every study guide had to be “pasted-up” by hand. Karen has since worked in every facet of company operations, from accounting to technical support to office manager and as recently as product and content developer managing and using specialized software to build the interactive training lessons.

Karen has been responsible for the features and delivery technologies Paulson customers experience in their online lessons. And it’s her goal to continue improving Paulson’s courses by exploring the latest available technologies.

“The mission statement, in my mind, for Paulson is to serve the plastics processor by providing them with superior scientific training delivered anytime, anywhere, on any device–essentially making training convenient for individuals and their employer,” she says. “As I think about what’s important to the business, I’ll start with making sure our customers have direct, flexible access to our training and lab lessons. We just completed an update to our proprietary lab lesson platform called SkillBuilder, which integrates each interactive lesson right into the courses. Before, you had to go through the lessons and then open up another program to access the SkillBuilder lab portion.”

“Having this flexibility will make training more fluid on the plant floor. Our customers couldn’t be happier with our new improved feature,” she says. 

She’s also excited to launch the latest version of SimTech, Paulson’s proprietary injection molding machine simulator. SimTech was developed by her father and company founder, Donald Paulson and oldest brother AI Developer Chuck Paulson. It’s built on decades of Don’s research, data, and his thousands of scientific formulas.

“My goal with SimTech is to get this dynamic simulation tool into every molding plant to revolutionize how companies train their employees. It’s a powerful way to train for a fraction of the cost of using actual molding machines,” she says. “We will be releasing ongoing molding challenges that companies can use to compete with themselves or even better, against people from other companies. Challenges are fun and, I believe, they are one of the best ways to really learn something.”

All of the Paulson programs are based on the Paulson Method, a logical step-by-step approach that teaches processing from the “plastics point of view,” (PPV) a term coined by Donald Paulson more than 40 years ago. It builds processing knowledge by focusing on the four variables that control the molding process: heat, flow, pressure and cooling.