Read more about some of our many Mechanical & Materials Engineering alumni. They are successful and active in their communities. They are involved in large corporations and non-profits, run their own businesses, teach and do research.
Steven Flohr
I graduated from UNL with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1971. I do fondly remember those years, 1966-71, in the engineering department when we ran a continuous game of contract bridge (the card game) in the student lounge room of the Mechanical Engineering Department. I recall many superb professors in the Department: Dr Barnard, George Dickey, Schnieder, Hoffman, etc. One of those professors recommended me for a temporary employment position with Brunswick Corporation in Lincoln. I had graduated from UNL but I was waiting to enter Army active duty in 1972. After working for Brunswick in the fiberglass production facility in Lincoln for about 6 months, I entered Army active duty and served for 30 years in military rockets, missiles, and space systems. I am not sure which Mechanical Engineering Department professor made the employment recommendation for me, but I am forever grateful to the Mechanical Engineering Department for pushing me into the Army missile and space business.
I was honored to be inducted into the UNL Army ROTC Hall of Fame in March 2002 after I retired from Army active duty at that time.
Arnie Bauer
Bauer (’62 B.S. MECH, at left in April 1959 during his Nebraska Engineering studies) is retired and lives in Whidbey Island, Wash. and Chandler, Ariz. "My engineering degree landed me a job with the Boeing company. I stayed there for my whole career … involved in their aerospace and commercial aviation products, as a manufacturing engineer for 20 years and an operations manager for 15 years.” From engineering and his Nebraska farming experiences, he says he developed strong technical and practical disciplines. On the value of engineering in the world, he notes, “Imagine the world without computers, I-phones, B-2 bombers, 787 composite airplanes, the Internet, GPS guided farm equipment, etc.—an engineer was involved in all these.” With an engineering friend, Bauer authored and published The Legacy of District 22, about a one room school in Wayne County, Nebraska: a historical narrative of a German immigrant farming family that sent three generations of their children to the same one-room school in northeastern Nebraska. The book chronicles the contributions 19th and 20th century American farmers made to elementary education.
Kim B. Blair
Blair (’83 B.S. MECH; he also earned a B.A. in Psychology at UNL, and his M.S. and Ph.D. are from Purdue) is vice president of Cooper Perkins, Inc. and founding director of Sports Innovation @ MIT in Boston. Blair has focused on enabling innovation at the intersection of technology and sports, and leads the development of new products and technologies for sports performance analyses from concepts to final prototype design and testing. He enjoys teaching future engineers the "soft skills" in engineering such as innovation process, communication and teamwork.