UW-Stout alumni Andre Kedzierski has his degree in Manufacturing Engineering. The offered him the opportunity to meet people with similar interests, but different backgrounds. Meeting people with different experiences allowed him to learn not only from his professors but his classmates as well.
"Meeting people from different backgrounds and with different experiences taught me that everyone has something to teach you," Kedzierski said. "Meeting people allows me to poke and prod about the things they have seen and what they have done to improve or change them. It has been an invaluable experience to cross paths with so many different people."
Kedzierski's most important experiences at UW-Stout were his senior capstone and time in the Controls Lab. In the lab, he was able to apply what he learned in his early fundamental classes.
"There is no better experience than when you work on a project from start to finish, and physically design, build, and wire a machine and then everything lights up and operates the way it was designed to," he said.
Kedzierski is currently the Process Engineer at Belmark. He researches and develops future technologies and opportunities to help Belmark continue to be on the cutting-edge of manufacturing. He sees what is going on in industries around the world, as well as support the effort in the plant on a daily basis.
He also has the opportunity to travel. With his role focusing on emerging products, has attended many trade shows. He's traveled to the United Kingdom to see a machine install and understand how it benefits customers and if it is a viable option for Belmark. Belmark also has vendors from Germany, France, and Israel who he communicates with daily.
"My times in the labs at Stout, learning manufacturing processes, allowed me to be able to help articulate to our machine vendors at Belmark what we need from them as well as help during the machine installs to ensure it is all going smooth," he said. "Had I not gone to Stout and had the opportunity to learn from some excellent mentors I would not have been prepared to do this so quickly out of school."
