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1. Hazard Mitigation Plan Available at WUPPDR |
A draft of the Michigan Tech Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan is available for inspection at the Western UP Planning & Development Region (WUPPDR) office located at 393 E. Lakeshore Dr., Houghton, between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
To view the plan or submit comments, contact Meg Pachmayer, assistant planner-WUPPDR, at mpachmpayer@wuppdr.org or 482-7205, ext. 315. Comments must be submitted by Wednesday, Oct. 8.
Michigan Tech received funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to create the plan under the Disaster Resistant University program, which helps universities plan ahead to reduce their vulnerability to natural, manmade and technological disasters.
Michigan Tech partnered with WUPPDR to create the plan under the guidance of an advisory committee composed of University staff and community members. |
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2. Board of Control to Meet Thursday |
Michigan Tech's Board of Control will meet Thursday, Oct. 2, at 8:30 a.m. in the Memorial Union Ballroom.
Board of Control meetings are open to the public, and all members of the University community are welcome to attend. |
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3. New Tutorials Launched on ID Standards Site |
Now it's even easier to download logos and add backgrounds to create PowerPoint slides using Tech images.
University Marketing and Communications has created handy online tutorials for these and other problems, like unzipping ZIP files.
Just go to www.mtu.edu/idstandards/downloads/tutorials/ for these three-minute sessions. While you're there, you can check out the rest of the ID Standards site.
If you have any questions, email umc@mtu.edu . |
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4. Tomorrow's Entrepreneurs Meet Today's Success Stories: Extreme Entrepreneur Tour Visits Tech |
by Dennis Walikainen, senior editor
Make spreadsheets easier to use for football coaches.
Turn yo-yoing into a successful online business.
Those were two examples of entrepreneurship shown to Michigan Tech students assembled in the Memorial Union Monday for the Extreme Entrepreneur Tour (EET), a success story in its own right. The tour was brought onto campus by the School of Business and Economics Center for Technological Innovation, Leadership and Entrepreneurship (CenTILE) and the Entrepreneurs and Inventors Club.
As students filtered into the room, Eminem blasted, and Marc Andreesen's bio was displayed on the video screens around the Memorial Union Ballroom. If you don't know who Andreesen is, then this wasn't your type of happening.
The EET, now in its third year, is the first nationwide collegiate entrepreneurship speaking tour, and in addition to featured speakers, the tour included a workshop for the assembled students.
Shawn Devlin of frontrush.com spoke first. He massaged those Excel files into a web interface that college coaches can use for recruiting, and he now has hundreds of clients (including GLIAC and WCHA teams). The Greek community is also looking to use his program.
His words of wisdom? "Be clear and concise." "Do business with family and friends." His mother gave him his eureka moment. Phoning her with the news that he wanted to quit his job and do his own thing, she said, "I want a Mini-Cooper with spinners when you become a big success."
It was all he needed to hear.
More wisdom: "Hire people smarter than you." "Love what you do." And don't be afraid of failing. His first online business did, but his second has taken off, he says, by "changing the model. I made ugly spreadsheets sexy. Michael Dell changed the model for the PC. He didn't invent it, he just changed it."
Brady Morris, a senior in business management, liked what he was hearing. He will graduate in the spring, and he already has a job lined up for his career of choice: running a fitness center. The only problem is "it is in New York City, which is great to visit, but not so great to work in." He hopes to own a center someday, "something between New York City and Houghton." And he is job searching, including attending Career Day on campus next Tuesday, Oct. 7.
The next speaker charged up the crowd. Pat Cuartero, CEO of yoyonation.com, did a quick overview of his business before dashing through the crowd twirling one, then two, yo-yos to the beat of techno-pop. Then he put his sport coat back on and got down to more business.
"I'm young at heart," he said, and we didn’t need to be convinced. "I took my passion for yo-yos and turned it into my business. I worked for Merrill Lynch for three years, and then I started yoyonation.com with a friend and colleague."
Now the largest yo-yo site on the web, they ship yo-yos to 70 countries (selling yo-yos that cost from $3 to $460), they have established many communities within the site, and they held the largest event in the history of yo-yos: 25,000 people gathered in New York City this August.
His keys to beginning his business included using his contacts from the business world, passion for yo-yoing (he was a touring professional), technological background and curiosity. "I'm not smart, but I can network," Cuartero said. "I'm not afraid to ask questions."
"A business start-up is like a child," he said. "It takes all of your attention, you can watch it grow, there will be problems, but you will grow with it as you take care of it."
He touted the entrepreneur life vs. the corporate life, but "It's not for everyone."
It might be just right for Alicia Schneider, also a business major, who was attending the tour for the second time.
"I liked Pat last time," she said. "He's really inspiring, I bought a lot of the books he suggested, and it has given me ideas for a family-owned catering business, with my mom and grandma."
Schneider has even worked in the Memorial Union food services department, which further fostered her passion for catering that began when she was 13 or 14 years old.
She might work on a master's degree or pursue the culinary arts, and she'll take more than a little entrepreneurial inspiration from the yo-yo guy and the spreadsheet guy. Perhaps she'll be the featured speaker on campus someday and give the Memorial Union staff some pointers on their already excellent lasagna. |
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5. Let's Get Together: First Friday University Social This Week |
by John Gagnon, promotional writer
A First Friday University Social will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, in the Peninsula Room of the Memorial Union.
All faculty, staff and graduate students are invited and encouraged to attend.
Complimentary soda and light snacks will be served, and a cash bar will be available.
Come and enjoy the company of your colleagues!
The scheduled time, earlier than usual, has been chosen so that everyone can participate in the Homecoming Parade at 5:15 p.m. Wear your Husky colors.
The inaugural First Friday University Social was held in December 2006. They have continued since on an occasional basis throughout the year to provide a casual setting for faculty and staff to get together informally to talk and socialize.
These socials are in response to a campus survey that indicated that faculty and staff want increased opportunities for dialog and interaction with others across campus—a time and a place to share their work and get to know others.
Such informal gatherings often lead to more-productive work relationships and an appreciation for diversity.
Mark your calendar. This academic year's First Friday University Socials are scheduled for 4 to 6 p.m. at the following locations:
Friday, Nov. 7
Par and Grill at Portage Lake Golf Course
Friday, Dec. 5
Horner Lobby of the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts
Friday, Feb. 6
Par and Grill at Portage Lake Golf Course
Friday, March 6
Par and Grill at Portage Lake Golf Course
Friday, April 3
Par and Grill at Portage Lake Golf Course
Friday, June 5
Memorial Union Alumni Lounge |
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6. School of Business and Economics Unveils New Stock Ticker |
by Dennis Walikainen, senior editor
There will be a new way to watch the turbulent stock market on the Michigan Tech campus. A new stock market ticker will be unveiled in the Academic Office Building on Thursday, Oct. 2, at 3 p.m.
Dean Johnson, associate professor of finance in the School of Business and Economics, says the addition of the ticker is appropriate for a couple of reasons.
"Of course, it is great for our Applied Portfolio Management Program as they continue to compete nationally," he said. The APMP has won the national RISE investment competition in the value category for the last two years and three out of the past eight.
"It's also important in that it brings the market into the everyday lives of our students, especially during these troubled financial times," Johnson said.
The ticker will show Bloomberg TV, headline news stories, stock quotes, US stock indices, market statistics, foreign stock indices, commodities prices, interest rates, and even the weather and the names of APMP supporters.
The unveiling will occur during the meeting of the School of Business and Economics Advisory Board and will also feature members of the APMP, faculty, and staff.
The ticker will be located on the main floor of the Academic Office Building just inside the main entrance. |
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7. Professor to Help All UP Hospitals Update Medical Records Systems |
by John Gagnon, promotional writer
Assistant Professor Guy Hembroff has received a $214,510 grant through Marquette General Health System for work that will revolutionize the identification and registration of patients in the medical systems of the Upper Peninsula.
Hembroff, who has taught in the School of Technology for four years and has spent six years in industry, will use biometrics and develop computer systems to facilitate the secure exchange of electronic data among the UP's 14 hospitals.
His expertise is systems and network engineering, and his work will transform how hospitals communicate with each other about patients and their medical history—conditions, tests and results, diagnoses and treatments.
Hembroff is developing a foolproof electronic system (the watchwords are reliability and security) that will replace a paper system fraught with duplication and the potential for error.
Typically, when patients register at a hospital, they provide variables to identify themselves—name, social security number, date of birth and gender—which are logged either electronically or on paper and assigned a number, the master patient identifier. The system can be slow, redundant and inaccurate, particularly if there are several people with the same name.
Conversely, then, Hembroff will use biometrics—a fingerprint in most cases—to create a unique master patient identifier and thereby the corresponding medical record.
"The system will add more security to the patient and the medical institution," he says
While there is a lot of work being done in the field, he says, "Nobody is using fingerprint readers to match to the medical patient identifier and disseminate patient information across medical sites like we are."
He will build into the system smart cards—he calls them medical cards—which contain photographs of the patient to verify the patent's identity.
He also will incorporate backup solutions for situations when the fingerprint isn't available.
Overall, Hembroff says, the technique will allow the rapid and confidential exchange of health information, and it will help hospitals track patients more efficiently, securely and accurately.
Being transferred from Portage Health to Marquette General? The electronic record will arrive before the patient, who will be preregistered and won't have to register again.
Arrive unconscious in the emergency room of any UP hospital? The patient's fingerprint will generate the entire electronic medical record.
"It will assure that we don't misdiagnose," Hembroff says.
His charge: create standardized software that could be used in all locations. The collaboration means that no one hospital delegates which type of hardware or software solution must be used; rather, all hospitals, which he calls "a federation," will share a "trust mechanism" that benefits everybody but gives hospitals the latitude to continue to use their own policies and practices.
Part of his work is to conduct penetration tests, assess vulnerabilities, and build in security checks—all to enhance safety and patient confidentially.
"The security involved is critical. Our solution will allow each hospital to maintain their own security policies, in addition to those of the federation."
All in all, Hembroff describes the project as "complicated and challenging." He has one year to complete the job.
Hembroff comes to Tech from Marquette via Minneapolis. Much of his technical work in industry was in the finance and medical sectors.
This work draws on his skills and experience in network engineering, computer/network security, systems engineering and database analysis.
Hembroff is the program chair for the School of Technology's program in computer network and system administration, and he has restructured the curriculum with an eye on beginning a graduate program in advanced network engineering, computer network security and medical informatics by 2010. |
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8. Physics Colloquium Thursday |
Dieter M. Gruen, from the Materials Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., will present a physics colloquium, "High Temperature, High Efficiency Thermoelectrics for Power Generation," Thursday, Oct. 2, 4 p.m. in Fisher 139.
For more information, contact Ranjit Pati, patir@mtu.edu or 487-3193, or Claudio Mazzoleni, cmazzoleni@mtu.edu or 487-1226. |
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9. Reminder: Great Lakes Water Symposium Today |
"Governance and Valuation of Great Lakes Water for the 21st Century," a symposium hosted by the Michigan Tech Center for Water and Society and the Environmental Engineering Seminar Series, will continue today, Wednesday, Oct. 1, with two presentations.
Dave Dempsey, Great Lakes policy advisor for Clean Water Action, will present "Great Lakes Water: Commodity or Commons? The Great Lakes Compact in the Context of Global Water Scarcity," noon to 1 p.m. in M & M U113. This seminar is sponsored by the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative.
Professor Pat Norris, Guyer-Seevers Chair in Natural Resource Conservation at Michigan State University, and Research Associate Saichon Seedang, of the MSU Institute of Water Research, will present "Institutional Context for Water Use Decisions and Policy Innovations in Michigan" from 3 to 4 p.m. in Dow 610.
Abstracts and biographies of the lectures and speakers are available at www.mtcws.mtu.edu/ . |
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10. Job Postings |
Staff job descriptions are available in the Human Resources Office or at http://www.admin.mtu.edu/hro/postings . For more information regarding staff positions, call 487-2280 or email jobs@mtu.edu .
Faculty job descriptions can be found at www.admin.mtu.edu/hro/facpers/facvac.htm . For more information regarding faculty positions, contact the academic department in which the position is posted.
Staff Job Postings
10/01/08
Analyst/Programmer
Enterprise Application Services
Assistant Research Accountant
Research Accounting
Michigan Technological University is an equal opportunity educational institution/equal opportunity employer. |
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11. On the Road |
Associate Professor William "Deak" Helton (Cognitive and Learning Sciences) presented three papers at the annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, held Sept. 23, 24 and 25 in New York, "Human Judgments of Stress State in Performance Settings," "Performance on a Sustained Attention to Response Task" and "Relationships between Caffeine Consumption, Cognitive Slips-Failures, Daily Stress and Sleep," and he also chaired the session "Individual Differences in Performance Under Stress."
Associate Professor Yoke Khin Yap (Physics) chaired the Center for Nanophase Materials Science (CNMS) user group business meeting and the center's User Executive Committee meeting at the 2008 user meeting of the CNMS, held Sept. 24-26 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, http://cnms.ornl.gov/ . |
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