Article by Liz McCue
Tyler Sullivan ’22 knew that he wanted to study engineering in college, and eventually become an engineer. But he also wanted to keep playing basketball, and at many of the Division I and II schools he initially considered, that wouldn’t be an option.
Twenty years earlier, Justin Stark P.E. ’01 faced the same challenge. Both of them now work at Olsson, an engineering firm based in Lincoln with locations in nine states. And at a critical point in their lives, both had someone say, ‘hey, have you considered Doane?’
This is the seventh year of Doane’s Bachelor of Science in Engineering program, which recently received accreditation from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).
Stark went through an earlier iteration — a dual-degree pathway that involved studying physics at Doane followed by two years at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to attain degrees in physics and civil engineering. He remained involved as a member of the advisory committee for the physics department, which later provided guidance and direction as the engineering program was in development. Stark also served as an adjunct engineering professor in 2018.
Throughout his involvement after the launch of the B.S. Engineering degree in 2016, he’s thought, ‘we need to get the story out about this program.’
Everything he’s seen, from the perspectives of an adjunct, an alumni and a team leader at Olsson, has convinced him that the Doane program has got it right. Compared to larger, traditional engineering programs, Doane’s is a breath of fresh air for hiring managers — students have had opportunities to explore leadership and know how to apply their knowledge to the real world.
“Our engineering graduates excel at communication and teamwork,” said Dr. Joel TerMaat, assistant professor of engineering and chair of the department. “Employers recognize how important these qualities are when hiring.”
In fact, companies around Crete and Lincoln are already competing to hire Doane students as interns and entry-level engineers.
“Doane is really trying to train leaders. That’s a big component you may not get at other universities,” Stark said. “You just get a different level of education.”
Those leadership skills are something that Genna Ryan-Piasecki ’22 calls upon daily in her work as a project engineer at Hexagon Agility.
“My current job relies heavily on working within multiple teams to complete tasks and projects,” she said. “Whether it was solving complex problems in the classroom, playing on the court, or planning events for my residents as a CA, Doane taught me what it takes to get the job done and how to work productively with others.”
Sullivan said Doane’s program taught him to think for himself, be confident in trying new things and to get used to being uncomfortable — all skills that have helped him adjust to a new job where he’s working and learning at the same time.
He also saw, in speaking with friends who did attend larger schools, the immense value in having close relationships with engineering and physics faculty — TerMaat, Dr. Cale Stolle, Dr. Guadalupe Leon, Dr. Ather Mahmood, Dr. Lavi Zamstein and Dr. Chris Wentworth, who retired in 2021 but remains an adjunct in the department.
That statement was echoed by Turner Hill ’19. He also graduated from an earlier degree program in Engineering Physics, but took many of the same classes as Ryan-Piasecki and Sullivan.
“The most important gift that Doane’s engineering program gave me was my relationship with Dr. Stolle,” he said, and that all faculty went above and beyond to help him and his classmates succeed in the classroom, in internships and in their careers.
Hill is currently an Engineer II at Malco Products, in DeWitt. Of the six-engineer team at the Eagle Grip plant there, three are Doane grads who interned as students because of the connections Stolle had made.
That experiential learning is baked into the program, in part because advisers like Stark gave recommendations on what they were looking for in future hires. It’s also one piece of the liberal arts foundation on which the program is built, which values critical thinking, experimentation, teamwork, communication, leadership and service to others.
Take for example the community of DeWitt, which used to be home to ViseGrip.
“We have had the experience of a lifetime seeing our plant grow from a warehouse to creating a prideful product that restored a town,” Hill said.
