EPod: An Engineering Podcast EPod: An Engineering Podcast

On this episode, Justin Kyle Bush talks with Ian McIntosh, who is a program director for UW-Madison, Office of Interdisciplinary Professional Programs (InterPro). He joined the InterPro Facilities and Building Systems team in December 2020 after being a frequent lecturer and course developer for the previous 20 years. Ian completed his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Solar Energy lab right here at UW-Madison. In this interview, he talks about the difference between open enrollment and custom courses, why professional development is important for retention and onboarding employees today, and his passion for project management.

Our Guest

Dr. Ian McIntosh is a program director for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Office of Interdisciplinary Professional Programs (InterPro). He joined the InterPro Facilities and Building Systems team in December 2020 after being a frequent lecturer and course developer for the previous 20 years. His responsibilities include teaching, directing and business development for commissioning certification courses related to project management, existing buildings, and building enclosures. He is also the owner and founder of ianTEACH LLC, which provides innovative and strategic performance-based training and coaching to engineers, architects, construction and facilities management professionals in various sectors of the national building industry.

He is an Accredited Commissioning Process Manager (CxM) with over twenty years of dedicated experience in Total Building Commissioning (a quality process) and has managed numerous energy, commissioning, retro-commissioning, and LEED® commissioning projects throughout the nation. As a Commissioning Provider and Mechanical Engineer, Dr. McIntosh has prepared and led several Owner’s Project Requirements (OPR) workshops, written and integrated numerous commissioning specifications, co-invented and implemented electronic bar-coded checklists, system manuals and tracked owner cost savings. He has also executed hands-on in-depth field work, performed functional performance testing of complex HVAC systems/subsystems and coordinated full-scale operation & maintenance (O&M) and user training programs.

Ian holds Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the City College of the City University of New York (CCNY) and earned his Doctorate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Solar Energy Lab at UW-Madison. He and his wife of 18 years like to spend quality time with their four children.

On this episode, Rebecca Jamieson talks with Ernest Nicolas, the senior vice president and chief supply chain officer for Rockwell Automation. Ernest speaks about how his many connections across UW-Madison contributed to his professional success, the value of lifelong learning, and the urgent need for the fields of engineering and the supply chain to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion.



Our Guest

Ernest Nicolas is senior vice president and chief supply chain officer for Rockwell Automation. In this global leadership role, Ernest has overall responsibility of the end-to-end supply chain for Rockwell. He joined the team in 2006 as a Lean, Six Sigma Project Manager and has held several roles of increased responsibility within the Integrated Supply Chain (ISC) functions, overseeing the process of planning, sourcing, producing and delivering Rockwell products and services to customers.



Prior to his current role, Ernest most recently served as Senior Vice President, Operations & Engineering Services (now known as ISC), and before that, he was Vice President, Global Supply Chain. Before joining Rockwell Automation, Ernest held supply chain, manufacturing engineering and manufacturing operations positions with the General Motors Corporation.



Ernest holds a Bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, an MBA in Operations Management and Master’s degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a member of the UW E-Business Consortium. 



Ernest is a member of the Executive Leadership Council. In both 2019 and 2020, he was named to Empower’s 100 Ethnic Minority Executives Role Model List. In 2020, Ernest was named to Savoy Magazine’s Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America. Ernest also serves on the Board of Directors for the Milwaukee Urban League. He is an Executive Advisory Board member for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Supply Chain Management program within the School of Business.

On this episode, Susan Ottmann talks with Dr. Jeff Linderoth from the Department of Industrial Systems and Engineering about engineering data analytics and design optimization. Jeff discusses the fundamentals of optimization and how it fits into a variety of applications with global implications.



Our Guest

Jeff Linderoth is a professor and department chair of the Department of Industrial Systems and Engineering at UW-Madison and a fellow with the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. His research focuses on modeling and solving real-world, large-scale optimization problems. Specific research areas within optimization include integer programming used for modeling yes/no decisions, and stochastic programming useful for decision making under uncertainty. Jeff's research places a particular emphasis on developing high-performance, distributed optimization algorithms, and software. He has an MS in Operations Research and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. In his free time, he enjoys golf, tennis, cooking, and chess.

On this episode, Susan Ottmann talks with Craig Lee—a Principal Group Engineering Manager with Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Craig completed his Master of Engineering in Engineering Management right here at UW-Madison. In this interview, he provides insights into his learnings from the MEM program, the Technical Project Management course where he serves as a thought-leader, and his experience as a leader at Microsoft. 



Our Guest

Craig Lee is a graduate of UW-Madison Master of Engineering Management program. He is an experienced leader with over twenty years of experience in the software industry. He has worked for both small to large organizations effectively combining strong technical know-how with the ability to create and communicate a strategic vision. He has proven himself by forming, managing, and leading cross-geo and high-throughput teams and delivering quality on both v1 and established products. Craig was recently promoted to Principal Group Engineering Manager at Microsoft. He has been with Microsoft since 2006, and one of his roles has been the Principle Engineering Manager for the Power PI Interactive Data Visualization platform. He's also held leadership roles for Microsoft Outlook and Cloud AI Platforms. Craig holds six patents and is a thought leader providing input for current students in the UW-Madison Technical Project Management course that is part of the core UW-Madison Master of Engineering curriculum.

Listen to Episode 4:



On this Episode:

On this episode, Justin Kyle Bush talks to Theresa Pelkey, the Manufacturing and Project Engineering Director at Kite Hill. Theresa received a bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering and a master’s in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from UW-Madison. She discusses her personal and professional development and the challenges of working, studying and being a parent. She also talks about her experience in the MSE program and gives advice for those who are thinking about continuing their education—whether through a degree or professional development.  

Our Guest:

Theresa Pelkey is a Manufacturing and Project Engineering Director at Kite Hill where she is responsible for environmental health and safety program, maintenance reliability, capacity planning, and capital investment for two manufacturing locations. She has had 17 years of production and project management experience in both processing and packaging in food manufacturing. She has operations experience in leading, motivating, and coaching teams to meet production, safety, food safety, quality, environmental, efficiency, maintenance, procedural, and continuous improvement goals as well as proven success in managing large build construction projects. Theresa is a successful leader in the management of capital investment and capacity planning as well as development and implementation of maintenance reliability and EHS strategy. She received a Chemical Engineering undergraduate and a Manufacturing Systems Engineering master’s degree from UW-Madison. 



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Transcript

Justin Kyle Bush  0:00   

Welcome to Epod, a podcast from the UW Madison’s College of Engineering’s Interdisciplinary Professional Programs. These podcasts are focused on big ideas and engineering and the people behind them. My name is Justin Kyle Busch, and I will be your host. On today’s episode, I talked to Theresa Pelkey, who is the manufacturing and project engineering director at Kite Hill. Teresa received a bachelor’s in chemical engineering, and a master’s in manufacturing systems engineering from UW Madison. On this podcast, she discusses her personal and professional development, the challenges of working, studying and being a parent. She also talks about her experience in the MSE program, and gives advice for those who are thinking of continuing their education, whether through a degree or professional development.   

Justin Kyle Bush 1:01 

Theresa, I’m excited to have you with us today. Thank you. 

Theresa Pelkey  1:05   

Thank you so much for having me.  

Justin Kyle Bush  1:08   

Let’s get started. So tell us a little about yourself and how you got into manufacturing. 

Theresa Pelkey  1:15   

Yeah, so I, in high school, actually, I was, I was in chemistry class. And our teacher had brought in an alumni student that who was an engineer, she came to talk about what engineering was, and I, I, anyways, we did this little exercise where we like solve problems in teams and groups. And I loved it. And she said, This is what engineers do, they solve the world’s problems, and they solve them in teams. And I was like, that sounds great. Like, that sounds easy. And so I really liked chemistry. And I really liked math at the time, and I did not want to be a teacher. As much as I respect teachers. I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher. So I said, Okay, I want to be a chemical engineer. And I knew nothing more than that, besides, I liked math and science.  

And so I went into engineering and, you know, I went to UW Madison, for my undergrad, and they do a really great job of, you know, promoting doing co-ops and interns in the career fair, and just, you know,

Listen to Episode 3:



On this Episode:

On this episode, Susan Ottmann talks to Dr. Dan Negrut from the UW-Madison Mechanical Engineering department about his course Computing Concepts for Applications in Engineering, the field of big data, and how simulation and modeling fits into the field of data analytics.

Our Guest:

Dr. Dan Negrut is the Mead Witter Foundation Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at UW-Madison. His research and teaching are focused on the application of computational science to engineering. Dr. Negrut founded the Wisconsin Applied Computing Center, he leads the Simulation-Based Engineering Lab, and is a NVIDIA CUDA Fellow. Prior to joining UW-Madison, Dr. Negrut worked at Mechanical Dynamics, Inc. and the University of Michigan. He was also a Visiting Scholar at the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory. Negrut has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Iowa.



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