Welcome the best and brightest engineering students into your company

Your company, my company, and more than sixty others have chosen to support the Engineering Research Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power (CCEFP) because we recognize the unprecedented opportunities it offers to all of us. We have invested in the CCEFP because we believe that work done through the Center will transform fluid power—how it is researched and taught. We also recognize the Center’s key role in preparing the next generation of our industry’s leaders.

The Center is already engaging undergraduate and graduate engineering students in classroom and research work. Industry’s support—financial, material and advisory—is proving to be critically important in ensuring that these young people gain new understandings of hydraulic and pneumatic technology. 

Now we as industry can take another vital step in reaching this goal while bringing immediate value to our own companies. All of us should participate in the Center’s 2008 summer intern program—a truly win-win opportunity. Newly organized, this program will enable all of the Center’s industry supporters to get to know top engineering students from leading universities across the country. As interns in your company, these students will learn about hydraulics and pneumatics through first-hand experience. You and your company will benefit, too, as these young engineers contribute their efforts, ideas and enthusiasm to your company’s operations. (Keep in mind that internships can lead to employment following graduation!)

How might an intern help your company? Here are just a few of the ways in which the intern(s) you select from the Center’s pool of applicants might work with your engineering staff:

• Review technical literature and reports
• Assist in projects such as computer-aided design and mathematical modeling
• Conduct experimental and/or product testing
• Engage in new research aligned with your company’s priorities

The 2008 CCEFP Summer Intern Program provides a positive and actionable step in preparing our industry’s workforce. But the program can only be successful with all of our help. Welcome at least one promising engineering student to your company in the summer of 2008 by listing your intern position(s) immediately. We’ve learned that most students make their summer plans before the end of the fall semester!

If your company already has an internship program, the CCEFP can help you extend your reach to qualified and interested students. If your company hasn’t yet worked with interns, the Center staff can help you get started. A brochure providing more information about this outstanding program and additional detail is available from the Center’s staff or at its website (www.ccefp.org). We’ll also be following up with you soon by telephone in order to answer any questions.

P.S. Please let us know about others in your company who the CCEFP staff should reach with further details about the intern program and with assistance in facilitating placements. You can reach Alyssa Burger, the Center’s Education Outreach Director, at 612-624-4991 or aburger@umn.edu.