Fall 2001
|
Fall 2001 |
|
Each year, Rose-Hulman honors four alumni with the Distinguished
Young Alumnus Award. David Boodt: David Boodt has a clear understanding of the value of education. The 1981 Rose-Hulman magna cum laude civil engineering graduate helps secure the legal health of USA Funds, the nation’s largest federal education loan provider. USA Funds annually guarantees $9 billion in education loans with annual revenues of approximately $350 million. The company works in areas such as federal higher-education law, nonprofit law, consumer lending and general corporate-governance matters. "I enjoy my job every day. We allow millions of students the opportunity to go to college, even though sometimes we have to act as the collector and demand repayment of loans. I work hard to treat clients well so they will choose to call our company, and I try to be accessible and return answers to make our clients feel more comfortable," said Boodt. Before serving as a legal champion of higher education, Boodt began his career in the oil industry, working as a structural design engineer with Brown & Root in Houston. He worked tirelessly on a $200 million project that placed an oil platform 1,000 feet offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, including the launch of the platform from the transporting barge. Following four years at Brown & Root, Boodt moved on to Omega Marine, working in the Syrian Desert to construct an oilproduction facility, base camp, airstrip and water pumping station. After nine months at Omega Marine, Boodt began to evaluate his overall career plan. "I came to the realization that I wanted to do something beyond design engineering. There was a certain top-limit career path in that field, and I needed a management degree or Ph.D. to separate myself from others," said Boodt. Following a one-year stint with Mid States Engineering in Indianapolis, Boodt entered the Indiana University Law School. He received a full-tuition scholarship and was elected editor-in-chief of the Indiana Law Review. Following the completion of his juris doctorate, Boodt worked 2 years as a clerk for Larry J. McKinney, judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. "I was one of the few who thought that my undergraduate education was more difficult than law school. Five years of realworld experience may have helped, but I still remember my Rose-Hulman education being difficult," said Boodt. Boodt moved on to USA Group in Indianapolis, working with corporate issues, contract negotiation, and advising the federal Higher Education Act for eight years. Following this stint, he moved to United Student Aid Funds, Inc., to protect the legal interests of the nation’s largest provider of federal student loans. He offered advice to upcoming Rose-Hulman graduates about planning for their individual futures. "When you create a five-year plan, think about more education. Consider your options. Create a situation where education is a possibility. You may limit your future without further education," said Boodt. While at Rose-Hulman, Boodt served as a resident assistant, played on the school tennis team, and served on the NCAA football statistics crew. He received his first introduction to Rose-Hulman from his father Ernie, a 1959 graduate who built the water tower that is still on campus today. Boodt currently resides in Carmel with his wife Julie, seven year old son Ben, and five-year old daughter Laura.
Hannum, a 1981 mechanical engineering graduate and one of this year’s Distinguished Young Alumni, is president of Garmong Design/Build Construction and Hannum Wagle & Cline Engineering in Terre Haute. When asked to cite the biggest reward of his career, Hannum did not list a multimillion-dollar construction project. Instead, he talked about the hiring of Russian defector, Yakov Smolgosky, in the early 1990s. "We decided we wanted an architect and we interviewed 25, but we just couldn’t get the right fit and finally had an inquiry from San Francisco," Hannum recalled. "I drove to the Indianapolis airport to pick up the interviewee and met a man who could barely speak English. I was ready to put him back on the plane to California, but I thought I’d see the interview process through. "The next morning, we went to our office unable to communicate. So I pulled out a spec sheet with a building pro forma and indicated I wanted to see a floor plan. In 30 minutes he turned out two floor plans and building renderings of a beautiful medical office building. "As our communication improved, I came to learn he was the former head of a 250-person architectural department in the Soviet Union who had been in San Francisco chiseling tombstones for a year since defection. No one had been willing to take a chance on him. Being a part of that changed life has been the proudest moment of my career." That career started in 1981 when Hannum took his Rose-Hulman degree and went to work with Schlumberger as a geotechnical oil business consultant. He started as a field engineer and was promoted to operations manager for the company’s South Texas division. In 1989, Hannum returned to Indiana to take over the family business, Garmong Construction. "My struggle was to take my oil company education and blend it with the construction business. Customer service and satisfaction were important in the oil business, but the construction industry was price oriented." To bolster the customer service philosophy, Hannum and Ralph Wagle (’83) formed Hannum and Wagle Engineering. That brought in the design component and allowed more control of the construction projects and higher client satisfaction. Both companies flourished during the 1990s with the company now housing offices in six cities with 80 employees, including 12 Rose-Hulman alumni. In 1996, Hannum founded a development company that leases industrial and municipal projects. Projects in which Hannum and his companies have been involved include a $10 million automotive electronics assembly plant, a $10 million church, fire stations, city halls, and shipping/distribution facilities and design of all types of municipal projects. The Rose-Hulman connection is strong. Hannum’s father Kenneth was a 1956 alumnus and his grandfather K. Richard Garmong was a 1931 graduate. "We consider Rose as a gold mine of talent; so we pay attention to kids who are here," David said. The company provides internships, and the family endows a scholarship. Two other Rose-Hulman graduates have already moved all the way from summer interns to partners. Hannum also pays attention to his family: wife Kathy and children Rachael, Mitchel, Eric, Greg and Alex. He is active in civic affairs, including an 18-month stint as president of the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce, and membership in Rotary. He is a member of the Associated Building Contractors and the National Society of Professional Engineers.
As manufacturing executive director at Eli Lilly’s corporate headquarters in Indianapolis, Jenison is part of a Global Business Integration Project team (GBIP) that has a goal to "allow the business to grow without needing to grow the infrastructure to support it," he says. "We’re developing a common set of business practices and supporting systems that will be utilized at all the manufacturing facilities for planning what to make, where to make it, when to make it, making it and then distributing the products," said the 1981 Rose- Hulman chemical engineering honors graduate. "It’s the largest project of its kind the company has ever undertaken." Completion is expected in less than three years. Jenison said the process of simplifying the business infrastructure "allows us to focus resources on innovation and meeting the expected demand for several new pharmaceuticals currently in various stages of Eli Lilly’s product development pipeline." Jenison said it’s the problem-solving skills he learned from professors Noel Moore, Sam Hite, Ron Artigue, staff member Ron Reeves and others that have enabled him to succeed in positions ranging from general manager of Indianapolis pharmaceutical operations to manufacturing director at Lilly’s facilities in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. "It was the discipline I had to use to be successful in a demanding academic environment and as a member of the football team that has helped me when I’ve been faced with difficult decisions," Jenison stated. Those difficult decisions began early because the demand in 1981 for chemical engineering graduates exceeded the supply. "We had an incredible number of job offers our senior year. I must have gone on 20 plant trips," recalls Jenison, a native of Paris, Ill. Jenison began his career with FMC Corp., in Lawrence, Kansas. After five years, he returned to Indiana as part of the technical services engineering staff at the Eli Lilly laboratories in Clinton. "It was the variety of engineering, operations, project management, finance and business jobs that have prepared me to work on a global project of this magnitude where corporate business strategy has to be aligned with a global manufacturing strategy," he explained. Keeping up-to-date about campus developments is easy for Jenison. To find out the latest Rose-Hulman news, all he has to do is ask his daughter Sandea, a Rose-Hulman sophomore majoring in chemical engineering. The Jenison family also includes wife Sandee, and children Brianna, 13, and Wade, 4. "The sense of a strong campus community really impressed Sandea, just as it did me 20 years ago," Jenison remarked. "I’m glad to see that the college’s educational philosophy hasn’t changed." "Rose-Hulman faculty and staff remain focused on meeting the educational needs of each student. The academic demands haven’t changed either," Jenison noted.
The 1981 chemical engineering graduate did it as an executive officer with Utilities, Inc., the fastest growing privately held water utility in the United States. The company had $67 million in revenues in 2000 and recently agreed to be acquired by a Dutch company. Kennedy once again performed his managerial magic as an initial investor and chief financial officer for Picolight Inc., a high-speed optoelectronic company that manufactures transceivers, modules and arrays using Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL). The company, started by a scientist from Bell Laboratories, has completed more than $56 million in funding, and currently employs more than 160 people. Next, he was chief executive officer of EpiWorks, a start-up with its core technology from the University of Illinois. The company manufactures gallium arsenide (GaAs) and indium phosphide (InP) wafers for high-speed optical communication and radio frequency applications. And, now, Kennedy’s expertise is being called upon as chief executive officer of SiWave Inc., a MEMS-based, venture-supported company that wants to become the world’s leading supplier of scalable optical switches for high-speed communication applications. It hopes to bring its first product to market early in 2002 and have large volume sales by 2003. The two founders are from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. All of these companies were developed through Kennedy’s Constellation Ventures, which provides the business strategy, financial support and marketing background for companies that are able to commercialize new and multidisciplinary technologies. "I help to leverage other people’s ideas and provide a structure to make them successful," said Kennedy, who lives in Lake Forest, Ill., with his wife, Laura, and two children. "Starting a company is never easy and it can be risky in today’s economy, but it’s what I’ve done for the past several years and feel that my experience gives the founders a head start." Each assignment is initiated with one or two technical founders and lasts approximately 18 to 24 months. "The short incubation period is attractive to me and best utilizes my abilities," Kennedy said. "At the beginning, I may be running all aspects of the company. As it grows, people are hired with specific expertise in particular functional areas of the company such as business planning, finance and marketing. Eventually, I hire myself out of a position and move onto the next project." Kennedy’s business skills were nurtured at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Business, earning a master’s degree of business administration with specialization in business strategy and finance. However, he contends that his engineering background was essential to becoming successful in business. "The engineering degree is what differentiates me from other business leaders and gives me credibility with the technical founders and the venture capital investors," said Kennedy, who has completed 10 marathons (three Boston Marathons) and numerous triathlons, including one Ironman. "I’m having as much fun as anytime in my career. It’s great to work with wonderful people, who have such great ideas, and helping them achieve their goals of building businesses and bringing products to the market . . . I always felt that if you really believe in your capabilities and persevere, then just about anything is achievable."
|
