Tuesday, February 9, 2010

CEAS students earn scholarships at FEF CIC Conference

CEAS engineering and technology students were among 17 students nationwide who divvied up a total of $35,000 in scholarships at the 62nd Annual Foundry Educational Foundation (FEF) 2009 College Industry Conference (CIC) held late last fall in Chicago.

Attending the 2009 62nd Annual Foundry Educational Foundation College Industry Conference are (front): Dr. Sam Ramrattan (left) and Scott Horton; back (L-R): Jacob Fowler, Jordan Kimble, and Matt Roobol.
Attending the 2009 62nd Annual Foundry Educational Foundation College Industry Conference are (front): Dr. Sam Ramrattan (left) and Scott Horton; back (L-R): Jacob Fowler, Jordan Kimble, and Matt Roobol.

The two-day FEF conference is held annually to celebrate the metal-casting industry and provide networking and educational opportunities for students and the industry. More than 225 industry executives, key professors, and university administrators attended the event.

WMU’s delegation was led by Dr. Sam Ramrattan,a Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering professor who specializes in metal-casting and who serves as a Key Professor for the FEF. Four CEAS students attended the event.

Jacob Fowler, a senior in MFT, represented WMU as a delegate at the conference, which limits the number of student delegates from each participating university to a select few.

Jordan Kimble, a senior in the manufacturing technology (MFT) program, won the American Foundry Society (AFS) Saginaw Valley Scholarship established to further the national outreach of this Michigan chapter.

Scott Horton, a senior with an engineering graphics and design major and minors in math and cast metals, won the Robert W. Reesman Memorial Scholarship, established in honor of the FEF president when he died shortly after the 1996 CIC.

With his passion for design and simulation of metal cast processes, Horton was impressed by the conference. One of his more memorable experiences was dining with Kohler representatives who were very interested in his die-casting skills. “I was one of a select few who were invited to attend the dinner,” he said. “It was amazing to meet so many other people with the same cast-metals’ passion that I have.”

Matt Roobol, senior in mechanical engineering, won the Modern Casting Scholarship, which was established in 1997 as a part of FEF’s 50th anniversary celebration. This endowment is comprised of advertising proceeds received by Modern Casting from advertising space bought by companies, congratulating FEF's first 50 years in the September, 1997 special training & education issue.

Roobol and Ramrattan were featured in a photo in the January 2010 issue of Modern Casting. Check out the story on pages13-14.

Roobol called the conference “a great experience” and cited both the dinner and the scholarship. “I really enjoyed having dinner with MetalTek reps and other student delegates,” he said, “and the scholarship means a great deal to me.”