By: Amber Williams
ISE Senior
ISE students travel to Virginia Tech to network with the brightest minds in Industrial Engineering
On February 21st, 2014 my fellow student members of the IIE NC State chapter and I along with our faculty sponsor, Dr.Anita Vila-Parrish, headed to Blacksburg,VA for the IIE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference, hosted by Virginia Tech. The weekend was filled with corporate networking, speakers, information sessions and invaluable opportunities to interact with some of the brightest minds in the profession.
This year, the conference focused on the importance of industrial engineering in the workplace. As noted by the conference’s kickoff keynote speaker, Juan Perez of UPS, industrial engineers are the only engineers that are equipped with the training to not only solve problems, but to solve them efficiently. During the technical paper competition we were able to highlight those skills Perez discussed. ISE’s Nathan Fouratt and I presented our papers making NC State the only university with two technical paper submissions. I was fortunate enough to receive 3rd place for my paper entitled Regression Modeling of Food Supply.
The closing keynote speaker, Marty Muscatello of CCS Inc., shared with us his heartwarming story of his rise to success as CEO of CCS, Inc. He highlighted his failures, his setbacks and ultimately his victory in becoming the CEO he had always aspired to be. His closing words to us were to do what you love, never settle and be yourself.
Overall the 2014 Mid-Atlantic regional Conference at Virginia Tech was a success. The NC state IIE Chapter anxiously awaits the 2014 National Conference in Montreal, Canada and the 2015 Mid-Atlantic regional conference hosted by Clemson University.