Alumni

Michigan Tech teaches how to "survive and thrive." The weather and the distance from home really taught Michelle how to handle anything that came her way and the importance of building a network of people she could trust. These lessons learned at Michigan Tech have helped pave her career, where she is currently the Global Business Director for Performance Intermediates, a business unit of Industrial Solutions at Dow. . . .

Paul Swift earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Tech in 1933 and attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business & Engineering. After nine years of working as a corporate industrial engineer for Carnegie Steel and F.V. Gardner, he returned home to Houghton to join the family hardware business. He worked as a partner in the I.E. Swift Company, with his father and uncle, and then became . . .

Pike Lake, Minn. — Chais Eliason was among the throng of fans pressing up against the glass that separated them from the Hendrick Motorsports team during Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway in January 2011. He peered into the garage area and took photos of NASCAR drivers Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. "I was thinking, 'How cool would this be?' " said Eliason, who lives just outside of Duluth, Minn., . . .

Bill Turunen joined General Motors in 1939, after graduating from Michigan Tech with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. After four years with the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942-46 and earning a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University in 1946, he spent his career in various capacities at the GM research laboratories before retiring in 1979. Beginning as a research engineer, he was promoted to head the mechanical . . .