Field Reports: Maurice Snyder on Helping U.S. Businesses Grow Internationally

Posted on May 9, 2012 by admin

Maurice Snyder

Madison is very memorable to my wife Miriam and I since both our children, John and Lucy, were born there. When I earned my PhD in 1969 in bioengineering, one possibility was to do research and/or teaching.

However, my first job was in business development at Electronic Associates in New Jersey. This company supplied real-time simulation computer systems similar to those I used for my PhD research in cardiovascular blood pressures and flows—a state-of-the-art computer at that time for all real-time simulations. My advisor, (the late) Electrical Engineering Professor Vincent Rideout, was the driving force to secure NSF funding for this real-time computer lab, the largest such lab at any U.S. university.

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BME Alum to Lead New Investments for Michigan Venture Capital Firm

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Jim Beal

Kristin Myers

Kristin Myers was on a fast career track. Just 31, she has a biomedical-engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison; spent five years in engineering, marketing and sales for the cardiac rhythm management division of the medical device giant Medtronic; got her MBA from Harvard University; and spent four years at the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm of Skyline Ventures, where she did due diligence on potential investments, served on the board of directors of several portfolio companies and made partner.

She made jaws drop when she announced she was leaving Palo Alto for Ann Arbor and Arboretum Ventures LLC — which this morning will announce that it has hired her as principal to lead new investments from the VC firm’s newest fund, Arboretum Ventures III, which was planned at $125 million but ended up being oversubscribed at $140 million when it closed fundraising last August.

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Graves Named CEO of MTS Systems

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Jim Beal

Jeffrey Graves

Jeffrey Graves, was recently named CEO of MTS Systems after a search including internal and external candidates. He has nearly a decade of chief executive experience at technology companies that deal with government contracting compliance.

Most recently, since 2005, Graves has served as president and chief executive of C&D Technologies in Pennsylvania, a manufacturer of energy-storage systems for the power market.

Earlier in his career, Graves served in various management positions at General Electric and Rockwell International. He has a PhD and a master’s degree in metallurgical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a bachelor’s of science in engineering from Purdue University.

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Zinkle Named to National Academy of Engineering

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Jim Beal

 

Steve Zinkle

Steve Zinkle

Steve Zinkle, a senior materials researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, (ORNL) is one of 68 members elected this year to the National Academy of Engineering. It is one of the highest honors an engineer can receive.

Zinkle earned his BS, MS and PhD in nuclear engineering and an MS in materials science from UW-Madison from 1980-’85.

Chief scientist in ORNL’s nuclear science and engineering directorate, Zinkle was cited by the academy “for advancing understanding of radiation damage in metallic and ceramic components.”

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McCarthy Applies Engineering and Medicine to Help Children Walk

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Jim Beal
James McCarthy

James McCarthy

Bone is a remarkable organ, says orthopedic surgeon and engineering mechanics graduate James McCarthy (BSEM, ’86).

It grows and heals itself, and not many organs can do that. It can be cut and gradually lengthened. The bone fills itself in. If done at the right rhythm, a bone can grow to be just about as long as you want it to be.

Bone protects internal organs including the heart, lungs and brain. It transduces sound so that we can hear. It provides the scaffold upon which to hang all our other parts, and works with muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints to generate and transfer forces so that our bodies can move in three-dimensional space. In general, bone is a sort of dream material for the engineering mechanics major. But it wasn’t a fascination with bone that motivated McCarthy to become director of pediatric orthopaedic surgery at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Continue reading →

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Ogunnaike (PhDCBE, ’81) Named to NAE

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Jim Beal

Babutunde Ogunnaike

Noted for his contributions to advances in process systems, process engineering practice and systems engineering education, Babatunde A. Ogunnaike (PhDCBE, ’81) has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Academy membership is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer, placing Ogunnaike among an elite group of individuals who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice or education. Read more…

 

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Engineering quality patient care

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Mark Riechers
Dr. Jacqueline L. Gerhart with Tocarra Kimball and her son.

Dr. Jacqueline L. Gerhart with patients Tocarra Kimball and her son A'lon.

While her heart is most definitely in the world of patient care, Dr. Jacqueline Gerhart serves as a superb example of the flexibility and potential of a biomedical engineering degree from the College of Engineering.

Like many biomedical engineers, Gerhart has been captivated by medical gadgetry since her first day on the College of Engineering campus in 2000. But just being familiar with the hardware and software of the medical world wasn’t enough for her. “I realized that being in research and development of medical instruments was fascinating, but it didn’t allow me to see how the patient used the end product,” Gerhart says. “Seeing how medical devices are used in a hospital and seeing how patients benefit from them became my passion.”

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Daniel Adamany Stays Ahead in the Information Age

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Jim Beal

These are turbulent times in the information technology (IT) business. What used to take weeks or months for a company’s information technology staff to assess, purchase and install, can often be acquired in 60 seconds with a credit card on the web.

Daniel Adamany

Increasingly, information technology services are moving to what’s known as “the cloud.” The term means different things to different people, but president and founder of IT company, Ahead, Daniel Adamany (BSME, ‘97), says basically, it’s outsourcing. Continue reading →

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Les Ryder Named EcoMotors VP of Engineering

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Jim Beal

Les Ryder (BSME, ’72) is the new vice president of engineering at EcoMotors, a company working to develop new engines and technologies for a wide range of propulsion and power-generation applications. EcoMotors engine and powertrain packages are designed to be efficient, smaller, lighter, and less expensive to manufacture than conventional internal combustion engines. Read more…

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Kiekhaefer Pushes the Limits of Racing Technology

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Jim Beal

Fred Kiekhaefer

Fred Kiekhaefer describes the demands that racing places on marine drives, engines and systems this way: “It’s like motocrossing a fully loaded semi over the Continental Divide, only the mountains are moving.”

Kiekhaefer is president of Mercury Racing and a 1972 UW-Madison graduate with a master’s degree focused on engine design and noise control. He is the son of legendary entrepreneur, engineer and Kiekhaefer Corporation  (later renamed Mercury Marine) founder Carl Kiekhaefer, but his path to the top of marine racing and manufacturing was anything but certain.

He started his education as a physics major at Ripon College, but finished his degree at UW-Madison after plans to attend MIT hit a snag.

“There was a brochure at Ripon that said I could spend three years at Ripon and two years at MIT and graduate with a degree from MIT,” he says. “After a couple of years, I went to ask about the transition and the staff looked at me like they’d never heard of it.”  Continue reading →

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