TLT: How long have you worked in a lubrication-related field, and how did you decide to pursue a career in the lubricants industry? 
Waynick: I have worked as a research chemist in the lubricants industry for 44 years. I began working in lubricants and fuels after several years working in my first professional job in the food chemistry area. I had decided that I did not want to stay in that area of science. The job market for chemists then was not very good. Honestly, I took the first job offer I got, which was working for International Harvester in Burr Ridge, Ill. It was there that I learned the basics of fluid lubricants, lubricating greases and distillate fuels. So my entry into the lubricants area was not something I planned ahead of time. Like so many of the key events of my life, it just seemed to happen, and I went with the flow. 

TLT: What has been your most rewarding accomplishment throughout your career in the lubricants industry? 
Waynick: That is a hard one. I have had many accomplishments during my career that I think most would be happy to have as their most rewarding accomplishment. But if pushed into a corner, I suppose I would choose my first major grease development project. I had just been transferred from working in industrial gear oils and metalworking fluids to working in grease. My company had the lion’s share of the initial fill constant-velocity (CV) joint grease business with the largest U.S. automotive OEM—about 10MM pounds per year. It was the largest single customer, single product grease account in the U.S. at that time. And it was the most coveted grease account in the U.S. The grease we were providing had been shown to be borderline acceptable in several critical performance areas. It was my job to develop a new grease that would solve these performance issues and not create any new ones. To do so, I quickly realized that using well-known additives in the well-established ways to achieve well-established results would not provide a grease that would meet all the required targets. 

I developed new formulation chemistry that resulted in several U.S. patents. My new grease used that new formulation chemistry. It was tested by the OEM in a computer-controlled front axle assembly rig that used actual CV joints. Each such test took two weeks and was designed to accurately simulate at least 100,000 miles of actual use. Passing this test was not trivial. Another grease manufacturer had submitted a lithium complex grease for consideration. It was tested, and it failed. The grease manufacturer then reformulated and submitted a second lithium complex grease. They told the OEM that they had determined why their earlier grease had failed and had fixed the situation. The second grease was tested, and it also failed. This was not looked upon favorably by the OEM since the CV joint test rig was primarily used to test CV joints, not greases. The OEM spent much time, money and effort in their CV joint design improvement projects, and the two-week CV joint test rig was the most important evaluation tool they had for those projects. 

Dedicating a two-week time slot to test a grease and then have that grease fail twice was viewed as a huge waste of valuable time by the OEM. So when my new technology grease went on test, I was sweating it! Although I had done extensive lab testing including SRV (stands for schwingung [oscillating], Reibung [friction] and Verschleiß [wear]) stepload and wear testing at multiple temperatures on both fresh and temperature-aged grease, even that much lab testing is no guarantee of good real-world performance. Once the testing on my grease was done, we were informed that it not only passed, it gave the best performance ever documented in that test up to that point in time. Additionally, as icing on the cake, my new formulation was 30% lower cost than our previous formulation. Does saving a 10MM pound/year grease business and lowering your formulation cost by 30% sound like a significant accomplishment for a scientist still in the early years of their career? 

TLT: What is the No. 1 piece of advice you would give to a person who might be interested in starting a career in the lubricants industry? 
Waynick: Be a sponge. If possible, choose a company that has at least one scientist that is highly recognized as a leading expert in at least one area of lubricant science. Then try to learn as much from this person as you can. Pay attention not only to what they do, but how they do it. Most importantly, determine why they do what they do. Immerse yourself in the appropriate areas of scientific literature. Read, read, read, and retain what you read. “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” – Mark Twain. My version of this famous quote is: “One month in the laboratory will save you one day in the library.” 

TLT: Throughout the different segments within your career, which one has been the most interesting, challenging and/ or rewarding? 
Waynick: I suppose it would be the last 15 years of my professional career. It was not rewarding from the point of view of my company recognizing or acknowledging my contributions. No such recognition or acknowledgment occurred. But it was very rewarding internally, which is the most important kind of reward. Do not misunderstand me. There is nothing wrong with receiving recognition from your company for truly outstanding work that you have done. In one form or another, I have received such recognition from every employer I have worked for except the one I have worked for during the past 15 years. I have also been graciously recognized by my industry on a number of occasions. It is a very nice feeling to know that your peers—people you have known for decades and for whom you have the highest respect—acknowledge your work as valuable. But the most important thing for me (and I believe for everyone else) is to be able to look upon your body of work and know that you have given it your all. Also, to be known as someone who respects the scientific method, maintains honesty and integrity and plays by the rules is very important. Those are the qualities by which people are remembered long after their contributions to science have been replaced by the contributions of others. 

TLT: What are some of the most technical lubrication-based concepts or topics you have encountered throughout your career? 
Waynick: The work I have done during the past 15 years relating to calcium sulfonate complex and calcium/magnesium complex grease would have to be for me the most technically complex topics I have worked on during my career. As I have pointed out in a podcast from 2023, the exact step-by-step mechanism of how calcium sulfonate-based greases are made has never been elucidated in the open literature. When I say step-by-step mechanism, I mean every act of bond breaking and bond formation in full 3D with full attention to the involved molecular orbitals and electron transfer. I also mean the exact 3D structure of every activated complex formed during each mechanistic step. I also mean the full understanding of any hydrogen bonding as it affects anything else. And I mean all those things in the exact right order. I do not think that anyone has yet figured all that out. 

So when I started my work to develop improved chemistries and associated technologies relating to making calcium sulfonate complex greases, even after exhaustively adsorbing all the prior literature, there was a lot of “art contaminating the science.” Also, I did not have access to the highly sophisticated instrumental analysis techniques that could have helped me determine at least some of the relevant unknowns affecting my development work. But by using some very critical logic in the design of experiments and in the interpretation of the results, I was able to make some significant improvements in both the chemistry and the manufacturing procedures for making calcium sulfonate complex greases. When I began working on calcium/magnesium sulfonate complex greases (a brand new category of related thickeners), things became even more complicated. But the same approaches eventually yielded useful and significant results. As I write this, all this new chemistry and manufacturing technology has resulted in at least 12 U.S. patents and many patents issued from other countries. 

TLT: What is the one thing you wish you would have learned earlier in your career? 
Waynick: Well, that one is easy. No matter what you do, you have to work with people. No one is an island, and in our complex scientific world today that is especially true. In order to get your work done in the optimum timeframe, it is often necessary to make allowances for others that you are working with. Pushing people too hard creates a negative effect. Sometimes you just have to let people work at their own pace even when you know it could be done more efficiently. It is not your job to be everyone’s manager. The person you should first manage (before anyone else) is you. If you get that part done well, the rest usually falls into place.

You can reach Andy Waynick at Andy.Waynick@nch.com.