Saint Nicholas 2024

Franziska Trautmann
& Max Steitz

Franziska Trautmann
New Orleans, Louisiana

Franziska Trautmann

Franziska Trautmann is the Co-Founder, CEO, and resident chemical engineer at Glass Half Full (say that 3 times fast). Born and raised in Louisiana, she grew up hearing about our coastal erosion crisis and experienced our lack of recycling options. Once in college, she quickly realized that we needed to do something about these two profound problems facing our state. During her time at Tulane University, she was recognized by the chemical engineering faculty for outstanding performance and inducted into the national engineering honors fraternity. Today, she heads up the research and development for projects such as coastal protection and restoration, new glass products, and process design. She proudly maintains GHF’s social media presence and communications. She is also the proud mother of our mascot Miss Tchoupitoulas.

Max Steitz
New Orleans, Louisiana

Max Steitz

Max Steitz is the Co-Founder, COO, and CFO of Glass Half Full. Max was born and raised in New York City before he moved to New Orleans to attend Tulane University. Before starting Glass Half Full, Max Co-Founded Serengetee , a global fabric company that supports artisans, their families, and ancient fabric-making traditions as a freshman in high school. While at Tulane, Max Co-Founded Give Back 2020 , a student-led movement to drive giving in local communities nationwide — raising more than $65,000 for New Orleans small-businesses, musicians, and The Second Harvest Food Bank. As a Sophomore at Tulane, Max Co-Founded Plant the Peace, an environmental non-profit that has worked to plant more than 100,000 trees around the world which sequester millions of pounds of carbon from the atmosphere annually.