Economic Impact
U of M Alumni Mean Business
The University of Minnesota's unflagging commitment
to education, service and research bears fruit in its
alumni. In every county in Minnesota, in every state in the nation
and on every continent in the world, our graduates
are making a difference, creating jobs and growing local
economies.
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John Weinel: Preservation Instinct
In 1992, a young man drowned when his snowmobile plunged through the ice on a lake near John Weinel’s suburban Minneapolis home. Weinel remembers his first reaction: "There should be an automatic flotation device for snowmobiles." A 1984 mechanical engineering graduate, he resolved to translate his concept into reality with help from the U’s Design Projects class, a hands-on course in which five engineering created a working prototype of the device.
Continuing Education
The combination of Weinel’s entrepreneurial flair and the students’ enthusiastic research provided a textbook example of the way academic/industrial partnerships should work. "I owe everything to the University," he says, adding, "I was a terrible, terrible engineering student." He hopes that his perseverance will motivate "all those guys sitting in the back row of class with nobody to tell them to keep trying."
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