In 1960 the Principal of Springfield's Cathedral High School asked Gigliotti if he would become the sponsor for the local chapter of a national club for technical and scientific minded students, JETS, the Junior Engineering Technical Society, headquartered at Michigan State University.  Michael did this and, to his surprise, son Michael Jr. won the National Science and Engineering Competition, and was named the National Junior Engineer of 1962.  Michael Sr. continued his JETS activities, was elected to its Board of Directors, and served as its President intermittently in the period from 1966 to 1976, after which he was elected an honorary Lifetime Director of that organization.  "It is important that high school students understand themselves well enough to choose between careers where the end result is abstract and those where the result is physical."  Satisfaction, he stated with respect to the abstract result, "comes from knowing that the problem has been solved.  Satisfaction from the physical result comes from seeing the finished bridge or the daily production of pounds of product."

 

In 1961 it appeared that most of the major objectives taken on by Gigliotti and SPEG had been achieved, and Gigliotti was appointed Director of Process Technology and Engineering for the Plastics Products and Resins Division, and moved to Monsanto Headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1962.  In this position he was active in a wide-ranging Monsanto acquisition program, which included the acquisition of PLAX Packaging with headquarters in Bloomfield Conn., Gehring Plastics with headquarters in Kenilworth N.J., and a variety of other polymers / plastics products businesses.  In addition, a number of joint ventures were initiated, such as house siding and other building products.

 

In early 1968, Gigliotti joined the Rotary Club in Clayton, Missouri, as an engineer, transferred in 1972 to Bloomfield, Connecticut, and in 1973 to Gloucester, Massachusetts, at which club he served as the 1985-86 President.

 

In 1968 the McKinsey Managing Consulting Group was promoting R.A.P. (Resource Allocation Process) studies to major corporations, consisting of matching future market projections / plans with adequate research and development supports.  Monsanto Corporation contracted with McKinsey to study Monsanto Divisional market development and research development projects within this context.  The McKinsey Group report selected polymer permeation as a focal point in the central research, textiles, packaging, and polymer groups, with a very strong recommendation that this diversity of sales and market projections, based on a diversity of product research and development programs, was basically flawed and impractical.  They recommended that a difficult application/market, of sufficient size to justify the work, be selected and that the current scattered research development activities be combined under a single person, appointed to determine commercial feasibility and initiate commercial development if there was a high enough feasibility projection.