We have exciting news! ENERCON’s Nuclear Services Group is sponsoring our first Senior Design Program for Kennesaw State University.
Over the past few years, KSU has become one of ENERCON’s primary feeder schools for our Kennesaw office.
To continue attracting talented engineers from our area – ENERCON has been looking for more ways to get involved with local schools such as KSU.
Over the summer our Nuclear Services Group met with the dean and assistant dean of engineering at KSU to brainstorm ways we could stay involved. In the end, our team decided that the best way to make an impact on the students and support them in the completion of their degrees was to participate in KSU’s experiential senior design program.
Our team requested that our program be multidisciplinary, meaning that the students who chose to participate would experience a unique opportunity to work with different disciplines on a collaborative project as they would in a real-world consulting job. All senior design projects at KSU were single discipline before this project, so our team felt it would provide the students with a valuable experience they wouldn’t receive otherwise.
The framework for this program was based on a previous project our Nuclear Services Group completed for a client. The project focuses on the replacement of existing vacuum pumps that are used during plant start-ups and shutdowns.
The project is comprised of mechanical, electrical, and civil/structural scopes of work and deliverables that span across two semesters. 6 KSU design students volunteered to participate in this program as their senior design project and will be working hand in hand with our engineers throughout the process.
Our engineers at ENERCON are not only working on being mentors to these students but also finding ways to challenge them as real-world clients might do. As mentors of this project, our Nuclear Services group has developed a consistent line of communication with the students throughout their completion of the program. They began the project with a kickoff meeting in early September and are now participating in weekly individual meetings with each engineering team. The students are also expected to present their deliverables and host design review meetings with their teams each semester – similar to what we do with our clients.
Josh Thalheimer – the leader of the senior design program, believes this initiative will help further our relationship with KSU, attract more electrical/civil engineers, and eventually create a pipeline for our recruiting efforts in the area. “We look forward to seeing how this project advances and how our relationship continues to grow with KSU”, says Josh.
The program was kicked off by a diversified group of mechanical, electrical, and civil leads in the Nuclear Services Group at ENERCON. This group consists of:
Fearless Leader
- Josh Thalheimer (Project Manager)
Mechanical Team
- Peter Bertasi (Project Lead) – KSU Alumni
- Jamie Fan (Mechanical Lead)
Electrical Team
- Shawn Sinclair (Electrical Lead) – KSU Alumni
- Humberto “Kaz” Costa (Electrical Support) – KSU Alumni
Civil Team
- Douglas “Trey” Bodenhamer (Civil Lead) – KSU Alumni
- Reesha Ramoutar (Civil Support)
