Ball point pens, three-ring binders, overhead projection screens, phones, computer keyboards and mice; all are things San Diego State University students use every day, and all are made of plastic.

Over the past several years, the plastics industry and SDSU have been forging a mutually beneficial relationship that will be cemented in May by the loan of a $140,000 Toshiba injection-molding machine.

Many people have spoken out recently against universities partnering with private business, citing conflicts of interest and loss of academic integrity. But for those involved with the Toshiba Machine Company America and the SDSU Facility for Applied Manufacturing Enterprise, the cooperation is much appreciated.

“Toshiba gets something, we get something. Everybody wins,” said James Burns, director of FAME and assistant professor of mechanical engineering at SDSU.

What exactly does Toshiba get?

The most obvious benefit is the promotion of its product, the 20-by-8-by-5 large-tonnage injection-molding machine. If future engineers are trained on a Toshiba machine, Toshiba reasoned, they will most likely prefer to work with one after graduation.

John Reading, a sales manager with Toshiba Machine Company America out of Elk Grove Village, Ill., said the company is involved in school outreach “not only to promote the product, but to familiarize (students) with current technologies in the industry.” The company, and others in the plastics industry, needs a larger, better-educated work force from which to glean its recruits.

Instead of continuing to spend millions of dollars on training new hires, manufacturing and plastics companies in Southern California will have well-trained, home-grown workers, said Chris Mitchell, chairman of the San Diego Plastics Industry Round Table for Education.

Ten or 12 years ago, he said, many engineering and manufacturing programs in California universities, including SDSU, were cut during a budget crisis. As a result, there were 7,000 unfilled engineering jobs in the industry, and there weren’t enough students coming out of the schools to fill them. Companies were forced to look abroad for qualified employees.

“The benefit to the industry is simple,” Mitchell said. “They don’t have to go too far to find skilled labor.”

The benefits to SDSU are even simpler to discern. SDSU is one of only two universities on the West Coast ? the other is Western Washington University ? with an engineering and manufacturing program of this caliber, Mitchell said, and now it will be even better. Students will be able to learn first hand about critical manufacturing processes.

Over the last six months, three injection-molding companies have opened in San Diego County, Mitchell said, and with the Toshiba injection-molding machine, the students will be prepared to staff them.

Burns said, “We’re trying to do more and better things (at SDSU), and the (Toshiba machine) is going to help a lot.”