IME students honored at annual Clausing luncheon

At its annual Clausing Student Recognition Luncheon, the IME Department honored 31 students as winners of several awards and scholarships. The Outstanding Undergraduate Student awards in IME’s four programs went to Scott Seckel (MFT), Erin Brown (IEN), Paul Marsman (EGR), and Quentin Witkowski (UEM).

Pam Apotheker (IEN) was honored as this year’s Presidential Scholar and the Dean’s Outstanding IEN Student. The other winners of Dean’s Outstanding Student Awards were Josh Brien (EGR), Josh Schilling (UEM), and Scott Seckel (MFT).

Six Outstanding Graduate Student awards were given to students in IME’s postgraduate programs: Geoffry Twietmeyer (GEM), Janna Muller (GEM), Gordon Peters (IEG), Olubusola Soyode (OR), Hardik Shah (IE PhD), and Jason Trahan (IE PhD).

Earning an IME Outstanding Service Award were Kayla Goostrey (IEN) and Renae Hoglen (IEN). Goostrey won for her extensive outreach involvement with the Society of Women Engineers, Habitat for Humanity, Alpha Pi Mu, Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), and Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honor Society). Hoglen won for her extensive leadership involvement in IIE.

Erin Brown (IEN) was also acknowledged as one of four Kenneth W. Knight Scholarship winners. The other winners were Supreeta G. Amin (IE PhD), Nikki Crocker (IEG), and Elizabeth Evans (IEN).

Doctoral students Anil Kumar (IE PhD) and Jai Thomas (IE PhD) were honored for winning All-University Scholar awards. Kumar won for his outstanding research and Thomas won for his outstanding teaching.

Luis Hernandez was honored as the winner of the 2005 Clausing Industrial Scholarship, and Melissa Saltzman won not only the Ellinger Scholarship but also the IEEE Paper Contest.

Recognition was also given to Brad Armstrong and Dana Gronau for winning the North Central Regional American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference Best Paper competition. The paper was based on their Senior Design robotics project.

Scott Seckel was the recipient of three scholarships: Foundry Educational Foundation (FEF) Outstanding Student Scholarship, Ford Scholarship, and the AFS Wisconsin Chapter Scholarship.

Other FEF scholarship winners were Ryan Miller, Matthew Rutledge, and Michael Tolonen. Rutledge also won the Detroit-Windsor Chapter of the American Foundry Society (AFS) Scholarship.

Winners of the IME 1420 TA awards were Laura Wegner (Spring 2005) and Anthony Marciniak (Fall 2005). Justin Hobart won the CADKey competition.

Three students received Society of Manufacturing Engineering (SME) Chapter 116 Roscoe Douglas Scholarships: Brian Cervin, Eric Korbecki, and Joshua Weise.

Clausing Industrial, Inc., is a Kalamazoo-based company that has been providing support to the IME department and offering scholarships to its students for 54 years. Clausing CEO Joe Felicijan celebrated with the award winners.

IME Professor Tom Swartz emceed the recognition ceremony, and CEAS Dean Tim Greene and IME Chair Paul Engelmann assisted in the award presentations.

New engineering management honor society initiates 44

Last month the Alpha Gamma Chapter of Epsilon Mu Eta (EMH) made its debut at WMU by initiating 44 members, including professors, alumni, and students. Among the new members were alumni Herb Everss (’65), former automotive supplier executive and now CEO of Global EMERGENT, INC., and Peter Karadjoff (’86), CEO of Mercy Hospital in Port Huron, who addressed the group and shared secrets of their successful careers.

From left: David Lyth, Larry Mallak, and Herb Everss

EMH is the engineering management society. It was established at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., in 2003. At WMU the Engineering Management Research Laboratory is one of the founding members. IME’s Dr. David Lyth and Dr. Larry Mallak are charter members.

According to a letter written by William R. Peterson, EMH president and founder, the society’s goal is “to recognize academic achievements of students in engineering management programs” and its distinguished academic leaders and practitioners.

Peter Karadjoff

Among the initiates were three generations of engineering management. “Before it became engineering management, it was manufacturing administration, and before that it was industrial supervision,” Lyth said.

Lyth noted that Everss was a gradu-ate of industrial supervision; Karadjoff, of manufacturing administration.

Both speakers reviewed their careers, connected their successes to their educations, and offered advice to students and recent grads.

Everss told them to find and enhance “the gifts [they] bring to business and industry,” to “do more than what is expected,” and not to underestimate the value of communication. “Focus as much on communication as you do on the technical side because one without the other doesn’t go,” he said. “If you can’t sell your technical strength, how do you make the point that you have the answer to the problem?”

Karadjoff told them to develop techniques to work with people who are not in their fields, to network by asking for advice on “how to approach” the search, and to be detail oriented. “You’ll get more opportunity if you prove your ability to do a good job at the small ones,” he said.

Lyth led the swearing in ceremony, and the new members signed an official directory. In addition to Everss and Karadjoff, initiates included three IME faculty: Dr. Kailash Bafna, Dr. Betsy Aller, and Mr. Joe Petro, Jr.

Alumni initiates from the Engineering Management MS program include Peter Battey, Mike Bosscher, Vincent Dutter, Juhani Engelberg, Terri Estkowski, Tod Grams, William Koepf, Brent Ladd, Kenneth Lee, Michelle Leiterman, Sundaresan Narayanan, Rahul Shah, and Greg Williams.

Alumni initiates from the Engineering Management Technology BS program were Nolen Akerman, Aric Carlisle, Michael Gaddes, Bradley Glessner, Joshua Maes, James McEachen, David Smith, and Nick Yambura.

Current initiates from the MS program are Dzinyo Asamoa-Tutu, Chad Beebe, Stewart Gulliver, Aaron Keller, Carlos Tejada Medina, Janna Muller, Peter Oosting, Geoffry Twietmeyer, and Max Wettlaufer.

Current initiates from the BS program include Zachary Armstrong, Ryan Linenfelser, Andrew Nowak, Kevin Ortbals, Melissa Saltzman, Thomas Saville, Joshua Schilling, Kyle Swanson, and Quentin Witkowski.

CEAS Dean Dr. Tim Greene and IME Chair Dr. Paul Engelmann, and IME emeritus professor Dr. Frank Scott, whom Everss’ said had been his “favorite professor,” welcomed and celebrated the new society.