Industry Connections Report | 2019

CONNECTIONS 2019

SHOWCASE: ADVISORY COMMI TTEE IN ACTON

Although advisory committees are typically not involved in directly financially supporting our academic programs, seven of eight $1,500 scholarships for incoming first-year plastics engineering students were recently funded by advisory committee members to meet industry demand. Steve Maki is vice president of technology at RTP Company in Winona, MN, and a member of the plastics engineering advisory committee. Maki’s company funded one of scholarships. “There is a high demand for plastics engineers that is not being filled, particularly in the Midwest where there is a lot of injection molding,” Maki stated. Additional companies involved with developing the scholarships included Advanced Molding

Technologies (AMT), Andersen Corporation, EVCO, Nolato Contour, Phillips-Medisize, and Scientific Molding Corporation (SMC). “First-year scholarships are important to campus since it facilitates our ability to recruit the best and brightest students in the region,” said Chuck Bomar, dean of the College of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Management. “This partnership is important to the mission,” he added. “We speak often about student success and this best happens when we work collaboratively with our industry partners.”

I love to share that excitement for my major and career opportunities in the future. We’re helping groom the next generation of designers and engineers. We help bring that real-world scenario to the professors and the students. “ “ Peggy Troudt, director of

3M has partnered with UW-Stout over several decades through advisory committees. I’ve had the ability to provide input into various programs at Stout. Seeing input from an employer...has been an advantage for both student and employer.

Jeff Asproth, Global Supply Chain Manager at 3M, is a 2000 UW-Stout graduate.

product design at Target Corp. in Minneapolis, is a 1984 UW-Stout apparel graduate who has been a member of the apparel design and development advisory committee about 10 years.

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