Me and 32,000 of my closest friends just attended a mighty energizing PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2023—the biggest ever, by the way. Needless to say, there was no shortage of advanced technology to dazzle us. But I also had an encouraging conversation on the subject of workforce development with FANUC engineering manager Jessica Juhasz (pictured above), who has a fascinating work/study backstory that’s more like what we see in Germany than what we see in the U.S.
Juhasz earned her B.S. in electrical engineering at Kettering University, which was founded in 1919 as a night school for engineers, managers, designers, and technicians in the rapidly-evolving automobile industry. In 1923 it was acquired by General Motors and became known as GMI, General Motors Institute. The Kettering name came in 1998. Located in Flint, Mich., and having a total enrollment of about 2,237 (1,516 undergrads), Kettering’s concept of education is unique in the way that it blends practice with theory in equal measure. In fact, all undergraduate students are required to complete at least five co-op terms with one of Kettering’s many employer partners. For Juhasz, that partner was FANUC.
