Skip to main content
Wilson College of Textiles 
Textiles History

Samuel C. Winchester, Jr.

Years of Service, NCSU College of Textiles 1992-2001
Klopman Distinguished Professorship in Textile Management 1992 – 2001

1986 – 1992 Member of the Board of Directors of the College of Textiles Foundation.
1992 – NCSU Distinguished Scholarly Achievement Award
1992 – 2001 Director of PhD program in Textile Technology Management
1997 – Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina’s Highest Civilian Award.
2001 – NCSU Extension Service that supported corporate programs in Six-Sigma Green and Black Belt teams

Samuel Clyde Winchester, Jr was born in Archer Lodge, Johnston County, NC on 6 October 1935.  He received B.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering and in Engineering Mathematics from North Carolina State University in 1961, earned M.A. degree in 1963 and Ph.D. degree in 1967 in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University, and the M.A. in Biblical Literature in 2006 from Shepherds Theological Seminary.

Winchester served in the 82nd Airborne Division from 1954 to 1957, earning the Parachutist Badge and attaining the rank of E-5 Staff Sergeant while making 20 jumps from the C-119, C-124 and C-130 aircraft.

Winchester began his industrial career at DuPont, interning two summers in 1960 and 1961 with the Analog Computation Group charged with “state-of-the-art” simulation of complex interconnected chemical process machines based on a combination of derived mathematical equations and experimental data.  Within several years digital simulation techniques coupled with increasing computer speeds and capacities had completely displaced analog simulations.  In 1965, he joined DuPont’s New Products Division at Pioneering Research Labs in Wilmington, DE involved in developing basic data for emerging new nonwoven products later commercialized as Typar®, Remay®, Nomex® and Tyvek®.  During this period he adapted his PhD research work using reflected and transmitted light photo-microscopy studies of nonwoven bond morphology.  He pioneered the use of Scanning Electron Microscopy on nonwovens using the Cambridge Instruments Mark I SEM prototype  bought by DuPont’s Fiber Surfaces Research Lab – the first SEM in US.  This work was the basis for identifying the cause of several serious web strength and end-use performance problems encountered on scale-up of Typar® from pilot plant to production scale equipment.

Winchester joined the Nonwovens End Use Research Group in 1967 seeking new uses for Typar® Spunbonded fabrics.  Typar® was aimed primarily at tufted carpets stretched wall-to-wall over pads, that were in an early stage of major homeowner acceptance leading to the rapid growth of carpet mills and companies in Northeast Georgia and surrounding States.  Winchester developed a ‘glue-down’ carpet form to extend the use into commercial applications.  There was considerable concern regarding end-use wear life and accelerated wear tests were inconclusive.  He then negotiated a successful wear and maintenance performance demonstration in several Philadelphia International Airport concourses where wear requirements and maintenance practices were extreme.  He also demonstrated the dramatic noise reduction capabilities of 1/10 gauge, low level tufted fabrics, first on the walls of his office, then EUR conference rooms, and then on the walls of Philadelphia Airport concourses.

Winchester was then appointed Research Supervisor of a team of engineers at the DuPont Nylon plant in Martinsville, VA.  They developed and commercialized a novel 18-denier, 8-filament, yarn in which each individual filament was melt-spun of two side-by-side polymers of differential thermal shrinkage.  This bilateral differential shrinkage enabled the yarn to be machine bulked via an inline hot box prior to yarn windup on bobbins; that could be directly knitted into women’s hosiery producing extremely soft “hand” and wear performance.  The team also developed and commercialized a melt-spun bi-component nylon yarn containing a small core of carbon-based polymer that provided antistatic performance in 100% nylon clothing use.

In 1973, Winchester was appointed Research Manager at the Dacron Research Laboratory in Kinston.  One research team developed a high-modulus polyester fiber for use in carpets to combat permanent fiber creep under localized pressure.  Another team developed a “brittle”’ polyester polymer that enabled the fibers to be  “stretch-broken” on special commercial textile mill machines to produce polyester staple fibers with a controlled distribution of fiber lengths.  Yarns from these fibers provided an excellent “wool-like” hand to 100% polyester fiber fabrics for uniforms in extreme.  Another team developed several fiber finishes with special in-mill processing performance:  one that performed well in yarn spinning over a wide range of humidity condition; another that enabled polyester to perform on the newly emerging and demanding Open-End Spinning machines; and a third that by creating high carboxyl-group concentrations in the fiber surface, provided exceptional wetting and antistatic performance; and a fourth that developed a polyester polymer that was ‘biodegradable’ in high technology commercial recycle facilities. Another research team developed high-speed spun, fully oriented yarn (FOY) that required a unique combination of polymer modifications, quench technology, and high-speed (4,500 ypm) windup development.

Winchester was then assigned Production Superintendant of the yarn production plant that included the first partially oriented yarn technology.  During this time, a number of cost-saving and quality improvement technologies were introduced:  at-spinning-machine yarn package inspection; introduction of ‘self-managing’ production teams without requiring a first line supervisor; an introduction of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Standards in operations, and a novel practice where two-persons shared one job during low production periods; Winchester was a member of a multifunctional management team that prototyped a week-long trust-generating, team-building exercise in Arizona, that led to training facilities built in Delaware and North Carolina through which 25,000 members of the Dacron Manufacturing, Marketing, and Technical organizations were trained.  This training became a critical part of the organizational conversion from hierarchical, “military-style”, “top-down” production and technology groups, to ‘self-managing’ teams where ideas for continuous improvement came from all sources.

In 1979, Winchester was appointed Laboratory Director of the Dacron Research Laboratory- the largest R&D facility outside Wilmington, DE. He was charged with R&D technology development for ongoing polymer, fiber, and machine improvement in Dacron production operations and in market place offerings.  This position also included oversight responsibility for Dacron technical support for European and Mexican plants as well as for the entire Dacron Patent Portfolio.  DuPont patent strategy was to patent all major advances, but practice in secrecy smaller innovations, whereas Japan practiced pursuit of patenting all innovations, no matter how small, thus cluttering the “Polyester Patent Space” with troublesome citations to offset.  The R&D laboratory was staffed by 70 engineer/scientists, largely PhDs, supported by extensive lab assistants and physical testing labs.  Responsibility was later expanded to include plant technical engineers at the four Dacron plants, technical marketing support, as well as plant quality labs to establish an integrated, mutually supportive technical support for all new product development, production yield and quality, and end-use mill functions.  During the late 1980s Dr. Winchester made the initial formal proposal to establish a new “DuPont Corporate Fellow” position to extend the professional progression one rank above “Research Fellow”. The DuPont Executive Committee approved this proposal and also approved Winchester’s recommendation that Dacron R&D’s Research Fellow Dan Gintis be appointed the first Corporate Fellow.  The Corporate Fellows reported annually to the Executive Committee their view of the strategic ‘health’ of the Corporate Technology Base, and grew to a dozen members representing at least one from each operating department.

The Dacron Business Venture represented 40% of DuPont overall business and competed with a wide range of products from four manufacturing plants into a very wide range of textile companies and end use markets. Winchester was the technical member on multifunctional Strategic Business Units responsible for integrating the complex product, to customers, to end-use markets, back into the traditional strong marketing, manufacturing and research technical lines of management and control.  This effort was critical in providing best quality, on-time products backed up with quick-response problem-solving teams into rapidly changing markets that were experiencing increasing pressure from off-shore competition.

 

Winchester’s work in the Dacron Business Venture was recognized by two DuPont Corporate awards:

  • 1989, the Corporate Marketing Excellence Award for “Comfort by Design” Team;
  • 1991, the Corporate Continuous Improvement Award for “Seamless Technical Support”.

 

In 1979, in parallel with work at DuPont, Winchester joined the Business School at East Carolina University as Adjunct Assistant Professor and taught an Operations Management course each semester to seniors and MBA students.  Winchester also joined the East Carolina Foundation Board of Directors from 1986-1996 and the BB&T Center for Leadership Development at East Carolina from 1979-2017.  East Carolina University recognized Winchester in 1990 as Honorary Alumni of the Year.   He joined the local Board of Planter’s Bank beginning 1979, that became Centura Bank, and then became RBC Centura Bank, resigning in 1999.  From 1986 to 1992, Winchester was a member of the Board of Advisors for the NCSU Integrated Manufacturing Systems Engineering Institute as well as the Board of Advisors for the College of Engineering; and from 1986-1992 was a member of the Board of Directors of the College of Textiles Foundation.

In 1990, Mr.  Roger Milliken began to generate considerable influence for creating a National Textile Center within the US Department of Commerce that would support and fund Research in Textile Schools in support of the Textile Industry.  Dean Robert Barnhardt built a team of several moving parts composed of members from industry, state government and textile schools at North Carolina State, Clemson, Georgia Tech and Auburn.  Winchester joined this team representing DuPont.  However progress was blocked by a key DOC official convinced that the Textile Industry was a ‘sunset industry’, having made little progress in the use of modern manufacturing technology, nor in workforce training and relationships.  We invited this director on a one-day helicopter tour in 1991 of three representative textiles production sites to demonstrate the very impressive modern state of the Textile Industry, supported by University Textile Colleges’ R&D, placed it in the upper ranks of modern production systems, workforce “technician” training, and quick-response supply chain capability: (1) A jeans manufacturer with a wide open cut and sew operation, scheduled by daily order summaries from cash register tallies at major retailers, with resupply guaranteed within 72 hours via air transport, supplemented by cutting panels that were sent to Central American for sew and re-entry to US under Central America Free Trade Agreement; (2) DuPont Polyester plant supported by an adjoining major R&D laboratory that produced the high tech DTFY/POY yarn where robotics were in use for packaging and inventory management and where the complex polymerization and yarn spinning control room had in place the original 1950s-1960s analog control systems (unconnected) where temperature and flow were monitored against control ranges and paper tracings; then the main-frame computer installed in the 1970s (unconnected); and the current desktop computers used by control technicians with full range of graphics and data collection; and (3) the Unifi DTFY/POY yarn spinning plant based on Murata Air Jet Spinning technology where one technician/operator was patrolling 5-7 production machines for high productivity, high quality, and low cost. The inbound POY feed yarn was from Kinston Plant with sufficient inventory in trucks to operate for 24 hours.  The Unifi plant was also connected into elaborate Just-in-Time Delivery systems for downstream manufacturers.  In spite of his fear of flying, this DOC director was turned from THE barrier to the National Textile Center into THE champion and NTC was approved in 1992.

In 1992 Winchester retired from DuPont and joined the NCSU College of Textiles Faculty as the William A. Klopman Distinguished Professor of Technology Management.  The Klopman chair was established in 1986, with Winchester as the first appointee.  NCSU recognized Winchester with the Distinguished Scholarly Achievement Award. Winchester was responsible for the new Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Textile Technology Management, developed by Drs. Subhash Batra and Trevor Little that had just been approved by the UNC University System Board.  Dr. Bob Barnhardt requested that Dr. Winchester lead the faculty in a two-year process to develop a Strategic Plan based on the NCSU Provost’s guidelines.  Dr. Winchester conducted research in operations management with several faculty colleagues and received grants (individual and a share of group awards) totaling $2MM while chairing 6 Ph.D. degree and 10 M.S. students.  This research was engaged in the issues arising from the extraordinary globalization of supply chains that exacerbated ongoing issues of “just-in-time” delivery; inventory location and management; and acceptance and adherence to quality standards.   During these years Winchester served on the Board of Trustees of the Textile Research Institute in Princeton, NJ and on the Editorial Board of the Textile Research Journal.  He was also a member of the International Governing Council for The Textile Institute in Manchester, UK, and served as international chair of the Information Technology Special Interest Group.

During 1993-1995 in parallel with College of Textiles academic responsibilities, Winchester was appointed Director of the College of Engineering’s Integrated Manufacturing Systems Engineering Institute during a time of diminishing industry support and faltering faculty project requests.  Winchester and IMSEI Board Chair Gene Addesso of IBM joined in a campaign to re-establish industry support for challenging projects, that in turn raised faculty interest in supporting IMSEI M.S. research.  IMSEI graduates were, and continue to be, highly sought by industry.  Also Winchester served on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Quality Leadership Foundation, as well as a Senior Examiner for the North Carolina Quality Leadership Award.  During this time he was part of a team that converted the standards in place for manufacturing and business organizations over to standards useful for educational institutions.  He assisted two NC County School Systems in implementing this program into their practices.  In recognition of this work he was awarded in 1997 the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina’s Highest Civilian Award.

Following retirement in 2001, Winchester conducted a consultancy practice in conjunction with the NCSU Extension Service that supported corporate programs in Six-Sigma Green and Black Belt teams as well as systematic assessment operations to improve on-going quality, reduce ‘breakdowns’, and lower production costs.  These included multi-year consultations at Duke University Hospital, Cotton Incorporated, Textile Clothing and Textile Corporation; JB Martin; Wheaton Inc; National Spinning; Closure Inc; Freudenberg; Filtrona; Caron International; and Converting Hearts Ministry.

In 2003, Winchester was asked to develop and implement all supporting operations systems required to support the academic programs of the startup Shepherds Theological seminary.  During the following years Winchester practiced the management and operations methodologies learned in industry and taught in university to create the initial organizational design and start up of all components of an academic institution.  Winchester also became in 2006 the first M.A. graduate of the seminary enabling initiation of programs for accreditation.  His work included establishing: Jackson Library, initially of 10,000 volumes with full cataloging and searching capabilities; Registrars Office to produce a catalog, setup academic year, enroll students, maintain student records and transcripts; Student recruiting and development programs; Financial planning system to support program management as well as accountability; Systematic Strategic planning practices; Initial distance education and teaching sites practices; and Accreditation programs leading to accreditation by Transnational Association of Christian Schools and Association of Theological Schools.

Shepherds Theological Seminary honored Winchester by naming the Seminary Classroom and Student Study Lounge Hallway “Winchester Hall.’  Pictured: Sylvia and Sam Winchester

The Ministry of Education of Kenya granted privileges to award degrees to Winchester Academy of Theological Studies (WATS), which is named after Shepherds’ own Dr. Samuel Winchester. The biblical studies program has awarded completion certificates to lay leaders who have planted eight churches in the region, including one in the large South Sudan refugee camp at Eldoret, north Kenya.

 

 

NCSU Heritage

Dr. Winchester comes from a family with extensive ties to NCSU in the 20th Century.  His father was the youngest of five brothers from a farm above Greensboro to graduate from NCSU from 1922 through 1935 (a sixth brother enrolled in NCSU was drafted in 1942 and KIA in France).  All five were living when the youngest was inducted in 1985 into the “Forever Club”, setting a NCSU record at the time.  Dr. Winchester’s daughter, Amy Winchester Mattheis, is a B.S. and M.S. graduate of the College of Textiles, and served ten years in the College’s Recruiting and Scholarship program.  Three cousins are graduates of NCSU, one from COT. And a granddaughter is currently enrolled in the Mathematics Program in the NCSU College of Sciences.

Hobbies

Sam, Sylvia and family have spent decades traveling around the world, but have curtailed to within NC.  After many years wasted on the golf course, shoulder injuries have forced him to retreat to watching Championships on TV.   Also years of major yard landscaping projects are now abandoned.   Decades as church pianist and organist have been reduced to piano at home with Sylvia as supportive audience.  Current enthusiasm is developing a comprehensive family tree of all branches of Sam & Sylvia’s parents and the parents of their son-in-laws – online with documentation.  And then there are the grandkids.

 Book Editor, Encyclopedia Chapter & Thesis

  1. J. W. S. Hearle and D. Brunnschweiler editors, and S. Winchester, et al, co-editors (1993), Polyester: 50 Years of Achievement, Tomorrow’s Ideas & Profits, The Textile Institute, Manchester, UK.
  2. S. C. Winchester, D. Shiffler, and S. Hansen (1992), Polyesters, Chapter in Encyclopedia of Chemical Process and Design, J. McKetta and W. Cunningham, eds. Marcel Dekker, New York, 152-195.
  3. S. Winchester (1967), Multivariable Studies of Nonwoven Fabrics, Ph.D. Thesis, Princeton University.

Refereed Journals

  1. K. O’Mara and S. C. Winchester, Enterprise Model of Mass Customization in the Textile Industry, Manuscript submitted – but publication never completed in Journal of the Textile Institute, Part 2.
  2. Altinoz, C., S. Winchester. (2002). A Fuzzy Approach   to Supplier Selection, Journal of the Textile Institute, 92, Part 2.
  3. Altinoz, C., S. Winchester. (2002). A Rule Based Model for Supplier Selection, Journal of the Textile Institute, 92, Part 2.
  4. Altinoz, C., P. Kilduff, S. Winchester. (2002)  Current Issues and Methods in Supplier Selection”, Journal of the Textile Institute, 92, Part 2.
  5. E. Singletary and S. Winchester (1998), Beyond Mass Production: Strategic Management Models for Competitive Manufacturing Transformation in the U.S. Textile Industry, Journal of the Textile Institute, 89, Part 2, No. 1, 4-15.
  6. E. Singletary and S. Winchester (1998), Beyond Mass Production: Competitive Transformation Trends in the U.S. Textile Industry, Journal of the Textile Institute, 89, Part 2, No. 1, 16-26.
  7. D. Sigmon, P. Grady and S. Winchester (1997), Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Total Quality Management in Textiles, Textile Progress, 27, No. 4.
  8. P. Srinivasan-Hands and S. Winchester (1997), The Electronic Commerce Data Base: Automating Supply Chain Coordination, Journal of Electronic Commerce, 10, No. 1, 37-45.
  9. E. Singletary and S. Winchester (1996), Beyond Mass Production: Analysis of the Emerging Manufacturing Transformation in the U.S. Textile Industry, Journal of the Textile Institute, 87, Part 2, No. 2, 97-116.
  10. S. Winchester (1994), Total Quality Management in the Textile Complex, Journal of the Textile Institute, 85, No. 4, 445-459.
  11. S. Winchester and J. Whitwell (1970), Studies of Nonwovens, Part I: A Multivariable Approach, Textile Research Institute Journal, 40, No. 5, 458-471.
  12. S. Winchester and J. Whitwell (1967), Multivariable Studies of Nonwoven Fabrics, Journal of Engineering and Industry, Transactions of the ASME, 89, Series B, 1-10.
  13. S. Winchester (1965), Properties of Nonwoven Fabrics: Sample Preparation and Proposed Experimental Designs, Textile Research Institute, Notes on Research, Report #145, March, Princeton, NJ.

Invited Conference Proceedings

  1. B. Ramanan, P. Srinivasan-Hands, S. Winchester (2003), “Modeling New Product Development in the Textile and Apparel Industry”, Proceeding of the Industrial Simulation Conference, Valencia, Spain
  2. Altinoz, C., Winchester, S. (March, 2002)” A Fuzzy Modeling Approach to Supplier Selection in Textiles”, Proceedings of The Textile Institute 82nd World Conference, Cairo (Egypt), The Textile Institute.
  3. S. Winchester, E. Singletary, P. Srinivasan-Hands and G. Hodge (1997), Workflow Coordination in Highly Automated Manufacturing Environments, 78th World Conference of the Textile Institute Proceedings, Thessaloniki, Greece, II, 123-129.
  4. E. Singletary and S. Winchester (1997), Beyond Mass Production: Competitive Transformation Trends in the U.S. Textile Industry, 78th World Conference of the Textile Institute Proceedings, Thessaloniki, Greece, II, 51-66.
  5. P. Srinivasan-Hands, S. Kuehnen and S. Winchester (1997), Electronic Commerce Database Design, 78th World Conference of the Textile Institute Proceedings, Thessaloniki, Greece, II, 95-102.
  6. S. Winchester (1996), Perspectives on Quality Management Systems, US-Egypt Workshop on Manufacturing Technologies Proceedings, The National Science Foundation, Alexandria, Egypt.
  7. S. Winchester and P. Srinivasan-Hands (1996), Computer Integrated Manufacturing in the Textile Complex, US-Egypt Workshop on Manufacturing Technologies Proceedings, The National Science Foundation, Alexandria, Egypt.
  8. S. Winchester, D. Sigmon and P. Grady (1996), Integrating Total Quality Management and Computer Integrated Manufacturing in the Textile Complex, 77th World Conference of the Textile Institute Proceedings, Tampere, Finland, 143-166.
  9. A. Ingle, G. Duncan, S. Winchester, W. Jasper (1996), Evaluating an R&D Consortium: A Metrics-Based Measurement System for the National Textile Center, Fifth International Conference on Management of Technology Proceedings, Miami, FL, 166-167.
  10. A. Ingle, G. Duncan, S. Winchester, W. Jasper (1996), Molding an R&D Consortium: The National Textile Center, Fifth International Conference on Management of Technology Proceedings, Miami, FL, 168-169.
  11. S. Winchester (1995), “Commentary – Is the Information Revolution Arriving in Textiles?”, Textile Horizons, December.
  12. A. Ingle, S. Winchester, W. Jasper (1995), The National Innovation Pipeline: A Teamwork Imperative, Production and Operations Management Society Conference Proceedings, Pittsburgh, PA.
  13. S. Winchester, “Quality Trends in Textiles (1995), INDA-TECH 95 Proceedings, St. Petersburg, FL, 349-363.
  14. A. Ingle, S. Winchester (1995), Designing a Metrics-Based System for R&D, Juran Institute R&D Symposium Proceedings, Chicago. IL.
  15. J. Cunning, A. Ingle, S. Winchester (1995) ” The Future Will Not be a Replica of the Past”, 76th World Conference of the Textile Institute, Istanbul, Turkey
  16. S. Winchester (1994), Information Management in the Textile Complex, 75th World Conference of the Textile Institute Proceedings, Atlanta, GA.

Seminary Papers

  1. S. Winchester (2005). “Establishment of the Seminary Library at Shepherds Theological Seminary”. Seminary Internship  Project, Shepherds Theological Seminary.
  2. S. Winchester (2005), “Justification by Faith Alone”. Shepherds Theological Seminary
  3. S. Winchester (2005), “An Apologetic Response to the Islamic View of Sin and Salvation”. Shepherds Theological Seminary.
  4. S. Winchester (2005). “The Eschatology of Luke”. Shepherds Theological Seminary.
  5. S. Winchester (2005). “The Evidentialist Method of Apologetics: A Critique.  Shepherds Theological Seminary.
  6. S. Winchester (2005) “John Wycliffe and His English Bible”. Shepherds Theological Seminary
  7. S. Winchester (2004). “The Gospels: A Study of Structure and Integration”.  Shepherds Theological Seminary.
  8. S. Winchester (2004). “The Conversion of Jonathan Edwards – A Puritan Struggle”. Shepherds Theological Seminary.
  9. S. Winchester (2004). “Jesus is the Son of God as Found in the Gospel of John”. Shepherds Theological Seminary.
  10. S. Winchester (2004). “Disciplemaking Ministries: Analysis of Colonial Baptist Church”.  Shepherds Theological Seminary.
  11. S. Winchester (2003), “John Calvin: Exegesis Arguments For and Against Predestination”. Shepherds Theological Seminary
  12. S. Winchester (2003), “The Gap Theory of Creation: Foundations and Exegesis”. Shepherds Theological Seminary
  13. S. Winchester (2003), “Job: A Man of Faith Tested and Restored”. Shepherds Theological Seminary