Alumni Board Officers Receive Alumni Association Award

Kent Schien, president of the MechSE Alumni Board, and vice president Rick Furkert have received the 2008 Constituent Leadership Award from the University of Illinois Alumni Association. They were honored for their exemplary leadership during the merger of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. According to the nomination, Schien and Furkert "worked together in a genuine spirit of commitment to the success of the new department and its new alumni board ... They took a completely positive approach to their task and were guided always by the question, 'What do we need to do to make the merger successful?'"

Schien, who completed his BS in mechanical engineering in 1981, is president and CEO of Innoventor, Inc., an engineering consulting firm in St. Louis. Furkert completed his BS in engineering mechanics in 1970 and his MS in theoretical and applied mechanics in 1972. He is a manager with Caterpillar, Inc., and will assume the presidency of the MechSE alumni board in the spring.