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The 2023 Women of UD

Rebecca Blust

Rebecca Blust

 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR / DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY / EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR / INNOVATION CENTER / SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

 

“Nobody on campus does what we do. And the students, the students are the best part. I love their energy! They’re bright, they’re smart. We have about 300 students per semester that come through the senior capstone, and about 400-500 that come through at the beginning. What we’re after is taking them from where the answer is always in the back of the book, to where it's not. We manage the bookends to give students that hands-on experiential learning. 

You got one foot in academia and one foot in industry. And by industry I mean partners, community partners. If they want not-for-profit, ethos, if they're into entrepreneurial mindsets, we team them up! There are a lot of startups in Dayton right now. It is so fun. 

We interview them, or they reach out to us, and we ask them ‘What do you need? What do you got?’ We have a few working with us consistently- Mission of Mary Farms, Dayton Food Bank. At first you're just getting to learn how to work together. It’s usually the second project where they understand what we are looking for and we understand what their needs are…those relationships become very important. Our primary goal is education, we make that very clear…If we can help the community it's a win-win.

We are hard on our students and that makes it tough, but when they come back as alumni and want to sponsor a project, that tells me that there was value there. That happens now more often than not.

Before UD, I'm a UD alum, graduated in 87, worked 3rd shift at a Goodyear Tire Company, managed 38 women…they just kind of threw you in the water to see if you would sink or swim. I loved manufacturing. I loved the people. They're the first ones to chew you out if you deserve it but they're also the first ones to give you the shirt off their back if you need it. 

The way Germany does it, their factory workers are looked upon as if they are sole contributors, they give them an education, they’re valued. That was not the case when I was working in manufacturing. Value individuals beyond what the piece of paper says. 

I ran into a former faculty member when doing a women in engineering speaking engagement. I was the world's worst student. But they actually asked me to apply for a teaching position. I was offered a tenure track faculty position…I got tenured primarily because I would go out on these site visits on the production floor. I was out in the field every other Friday, we would leave at 5 in the morning and conduct these energy audits. When the recession hit some of the funding was cut. At that time someone asked about coordinating projects in the Innovation Center. I started pulling projects together. As Director of the Innovation Center, we have grown at one point exponentially from 2012 up until the pandemic. The engineering numbers were going through the roof.

Not every project is perfect, not every client is perfect, not every student team is perfect, but I love it because every single day is different. Some days you dance with the bear, some days you run from it. Some days you dance with a bear and it eats ya. 

Our community partners need engineers. It doesn’t have to be traditional engineering. Supplying the Dayton Food Bank with a process that is more effective means they can feed more people. We worked with them on food waste. They’re a dumping ground for other stores, and if they don’t have a ‘first in first out' rotation, they're throwing away more than they’re giving.

I don’t know a lot, but I love listening to people, and boy, more often than not they have better ideas, and if you can get them to work with you it will be more impactful. Luckily we're all about experiential learning, but we have to learn how to make it more economical and accessible to everyone.” 

 

CONTACT
Alumni Hall
300 College Park
Dayton, Ohio 45469 - 0322
937-229-5390
Email