Eric Brunk

Congratulations to Packaging student Eric Brunk on being one of eleven students awarded the 2017 Board of Trustees’ Award.  This award recognizes students for having the highest scholastic average at the close of their last semester in attendance at Michigan State University.  Eric is from Shelby Township and is a graduate of Dwight D. Eisenhower High School.  He earned a 4.0 GPA.

Way to go Eric!

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The Fritz Water Vest allows people in developing countries to carry up to 20 pounds of water easily and safely.  The vest is antimicrobial, ergonomic, and reusable.

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Congratulations to the students and alumni who won scholarships and awards and were celebrated in April at the Packaging Awards Banquet in East Lansing, MI. We are proud of the Spartan Alumni who are leaders in the packaging industry and cannot wait to see what the student award winners will do when they graduate and enter the workforce. Go Green! #spartanswill

2016 – 2017 Scholarship and Fellowship Award Winner List

Alumni Awards
Gail Tavill  – 2017 Packaging Alumni Association Hall of Fame
Sean Gorman – 2017 Packaging Alumni Association Service Award Winner
Matt Danhof – 2017 Packaging Alumni Innovation Award

Student Awards

Kenna Payne, Rachel Schodowski, Grant Devota, Lindsay Jessmore, Madison Nodus-Rydahl, Madison Hardy, Hanna Holmi, Alexandra Reau, Alie Slagle, Sarah Snider, Brianne Belanger, Kameron Gilbert, Shelby Robinson, Gauri Awalgaonar, Pooja Mayekar – 2017 Packaging Alumni Association Scholarships

Sean Coast, Jacob Cvengros, Yifan He, Tara Kujawa, Woranit Muangmala, Gerald Perreault, Delanie Thurlow, Fang Wu – 2016 PAA Design Competition 1st Place

Eric Estrada – Mary Ann Merrill Packaging Scholarship

Carlie Allen, Standish Lehman, Connor Wynkoop, Megan Vondette – Glass Packaging Design Competition 1st Place Spring 2016

Tyler Dohm, Katie Nguyen, Jacob Houlihan, Jinghui Zhang, Yijia Xing – Glass Packaging Design Competition 1st Place Fall 2016

Brad Harris, Jeffery Herron, Kyle Laslo, Valen Yangouyian – Glass Packaging Design Competition 1st Place Fall 2015-Spring 2016

Madison Hardy, Haley Ferer – CANR Alumni Association Scholarship

Sarah Simpson – HJ Heinz Endowed Scholarship

Kristina Hughes, Meghan Green – Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics Scholarship

Kameron Gilbert – Allied Trades of the Baking Industry Scholarship

David Joslyn – International Society of Beverage Technologists Scholarship

Shelby Robinson – Cheryl Gilliam Endowed Scholarship

Allison Friebe – Laura Anne Polakowski Endowed Scholarship

Gauri Awalgaonuar – Paul Singh Endowed Fellowship for Graduate Student Excellence

Madison Hardy – Menasha Corporation Endowed Scholarship

Sebastian Stankiewicz – Society of Manufacturing Engineers Endowed Scholarship

Kameron Gilbert – NIPHLE Scholarship

Johnny Kieu – Paul and Joanne Peoples Endowed Scholarship

Laura Barts, Alie Slagle – IoPP Scholarships 2016

Sean Coast, Hanna Holmi – Mark and Catherine Walchak Endowed Scholarship
Lukas Morrison – Selig Group Scholarship
Emma Griffin, Kenna Payne, Zachary Gudziak, Jillian Hoffman – Dwight Schmidt Endowed Scholarship
Becca Uebele – Chemical and Allied Industries of NW Ohio Endowed Scholarship
Linh Dao – Kimberly Clark Endowed Scholarship
Jonathon McWherter – Edwin McLean Corrugated Scholarship
Alie Slagle – Juice Products Association Scholarship
Cayla Watkins – Juice Products Association Old Orchard Scholarship
Alexandra Reau – Juice Products Association Amcor Scholarship
Lindsay Jessmore – Obolewicz/DeBuck Family Scholarship
Haley Ferer, Madison Nodus-Rydahl – Packaging Technology and Integrated Solutions Endowed Scholarship
Haris Zejnilovic – Ternes Cornerstone Spartan Challenge Scholarship
Laura Barts – Silgan Container Scholarship
Cody Krause, Savannah Guinyard, Riley Griffin, Jimmy Russell Katherine Woloson – Study Abroad Scholarship
Victoria Jansz – Suzanne Fisher Scholarship
Haley Ferer – Bill Zito Packaging Scholarship Award
Alyssa Scherer – J. Richard Troll Memorial Scholarship (2nd place)
Shelby Robinson – J. Richard Troll Memorial Scholarship (3rd place)

Ian Campa, Linh Dao, Allison Friebe, Victoria Jansz, Sebastian Stankiewicz – SoP Undergraduate Research Scholarship

The post 2017 Packaging Award Recipients appeared first on MSUPAA.

The School of Packaging’s Alumni Association (PAA) presents four awards to deserving individuals for their service and career accomplishments within the following categories of Packaging below. Candidates may be recommended by packaging alumni, industry stakeholders, and through self-nominations.
• Hall of Fame Award
• Paul Schmidt Service Award
• Innovation Award
• Young Alumni Award (less than 10 years from graduation)

The winner for each category will be recognized at the 7th Annual Packaging Awards Banquet in April 2017 at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing and will be invited on a VIP Tour prior to the banquet.

Please help the PAA by reviewing the nomination forms under Awards on the website. If you know of a very deserving individual that should be recognized for their service to MSU, service to the School of Packaging, and/or their career achievements, please send in a nomination!

Please submit your nomination to the MSUPAA Awards Team at msupaa.org@gmail.com.

Thank you for your consideration and GO GREEN!
PAA Awards Team
#MSUPAAAwards

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Spring graduation was an exciting event. BS degrees were awarded to 115 Packaging students, with another 28 planning to graduate this summer but “walking” in the spring ceremony. We had by far the largest contingent at the CANR graduation ceremony. When the 93 students who graduated fall semester are included, that totals over 230 new Packaging alumni this year! Total undergrad enrollment for spring semester was down to about 750 students, so our increased admission requirements are having an effect in moving us towards our goal of undergrad enrollment close to the 1980-2010 average of about 500 (freshmen through seniors). And, anecdotal evidence from faculty is that average performance of our undergrads in our packaging classes continues to improve, which means that employers hiring our new graduates will benefit from their increased skills.

A substantial revision in the undergraduate curriculum was approved by the University this spring, and goes into effect in the fall. Students beginning the program Fall 2016 or later will earn a concentration in either Packaging Science or Packaging Value Chain, which will appear on their transcripts. Students in the Packaging Science concentration will be required to take either Food Packaging or Medical Packaging along with additional courses in technical subjects. Students in the Packaging Value Chain concentration will be required to take the new Packaging Value Chain class along with additional business-related courses. The old Packaging Graphics course (PKG 330) will be Packaging for Fast Moving Consumer Goods (PKG 430), and the Packaging and the Environment course (PKG 370) will become Packaging Sustainability (PKG 470). Packaging Decision Systems (PKG 315) will incorporate more economics and an introduction to life cycle assessment. Packaging Development (PKG 485) will be split into two classes, PKG 485 and PKG 486, Packaging Senior Capstone, with the latter focusing entirely on the packaging design project. There are also some changes in the graduate curriculum and in other courses, but these are the highlights. Along with these curriculum modifications, there is increased emphasis on assessment of learning outcomes and using that information for continuous improvement of the curriculum.

In other news, Patrick McDavid has joined the School as an instructor. He’ll be teaching the Distribution Packaging Dynamics course (PKG 410) this fall, as Dr. Gary Burgess enters his consulting year and will retire next May. We’re in various stages of the search process for 3 new tenure system faculty. We continue to work on improving our laboratory facilities for both teaching and research. Among our new acquisitions are a 5-layer cast film line, and a combination check weigher/metal detector. Earlier this month we had another successful offering of our Packaging Basics course, with participants from industry, often new to packaging roles, getting a broad grounding in the discipline. Some of them voiced interest in continuing their education in our on-line MS program! This fall, we’ll be offering Food Packaging Basics as well as the Healthcare Packaging Immersion Experience. Details are on our website, http://www.packaging.msu.edu/.

Dr. Eva Almenar’s research on prolonging the shelf life of fresh produce was featured May 16 in MSU Today (http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/new-packaging-advances-prolongs-veggie-freshness/). While the article talked about onions, she’s done similar research with a variety of other types of vegetables and fruit. She also heavily involves undergraduates in her research, with several becoming co-authors on published papers. Because of a grant from the Packaging Alumni Association, which supplements funding offered through the College, we’ve been able to offer financial support to additional talented undergraduates working with several of our faculty on research projects, part of our ongoing efforts to increase the research productivity of the School, in keeping with the goals outlined in our 2015 Strategic Plan.

In April, we held our annual Awards Banquet at Kellogg Center. More than 130 student award winners, family members, scholarship donors, members of our Advisory Board, and faculty and staff attended the celebration. Many attendees took advantage of the opportunity to get their picture taken with our special guest, Sparty!

I hope you all have a relaxing summer, and an enjoyable fall. The plan is for this to be the first in an ongoing series of updates, to try to better communicate with all of you what is going on at the School. And, I’d love to hear from you, as well.

Sue Selke, sselke@msu.edu

The post School of Packaging – Spring Semester 2016 Director’s Update appeared first on MSUPAA.

The MSUPAA recently hosted a VIP tour of the Clara Bell Smith Center, Skandalaris Building, and the Football Stadium for our $3500 and above sponsors during the afternoon prior to the Packaging Awards Banquet on April 14, 2016.

PAA VIP tour group enjoying all of the football trophies

The VIP event was given by members of the  MSU Athletic department and alumni of      both the athletic department and School of  Packaging (Cheryl Gilliam and Travis Key).  The tour also incorporated current students  of the School of Packaging who participate in  an MSU athletic program. This gave our VIP  guests a real perspective of what it means to  be a student athlete at MSU.

School of Packaging student athletes: Brennan Labar, Sarah Love, Destinee Luna, and Emily Parsons (not pictured)

Following the VIP tour, the Sixth Annual Packaging Awards Banquet was held at the Kellogg Center. The Awards Banquet was made possible by support from the MSU Packaging Alumni Association and its sponsors. The evening was about recognizing and thanking the donor organization and the individuals who have supported the students of the school for many years, through event sponsorships and scholarships. The night was designed to acknowledge and showcase students and their accomplishments along with recognizing outstanding Alumni. Sparty stopped by to say hello and congratulate all of the outstanding students and award winners!

The MSU Packaging Alumni Association proudly awarded 13 scholarships to students this year. In addition, the MSUPAA named the following Alumni Award winners:
· Hall of Fame: Chip Foster
· Service Award: Karen Keeder
· Service Award: Kevin Walker

2016 PAA Award Winners from left: Karen Keeder (Service); Chip Foster (Hall of Fame); & Kevin Walker (Service)

Members of the PAA Board 2016

It is with the support both through volunteering and sponsorship that the MSUPAA is able to support the students and the school. CONGRATULATIONS to all of the scholarship recipients and our outstanding alumni!

Photos of the awards banquet, especially close-ups with Sparty, are available in the link at the top or by visiting our MSUPAA Facebook page.

GO GREEN!

The post Sparty Stopped by a Successful 2016 Packaging Awards Banquet appeared first on MSUPAA.

The banquet will be held at the  Kellogg Hotel and Conference  Center.
Big 10 A, 55 South Harrison  Avenue East Lansing, MI

Please join us for cocktails at 5:30 pm; Sparty will be available for pictures, and dinner will be served at 6:30 pm.  The awards program will start approximately at 7p.

Alumni tickets may be purchased for $30.00

To register, please visit:

http://www.packaging.msu.edu/events/awards_banquet

GO GREEN!

PAA Awards Team

The post Packaging Awards Banquet – April 14th appeared first on MSUPAA.

We really need your help! Each year, the School of Packaging’s Alumni Association (PAA) presents four awards to deserving individuals for their service and career accomplishments within the following categories of Packaging. To start the season off right, we need your help in nominating and promoting the recognition of deserving individuals next April at the Awards Banquet.

If you could all take time to think of a colleague or friend that would fit the criteria of one of these awards and interview them for information on their career accomplishments, volunteering at MSU/SOP activities, community outreach, and awards received and then fill out a nomination on their behalf for the PAA, we’d greatly appreciate it OR if you have an individual in mind, please let us know and we’d be happy to help with the discussion to obtain the necessary information for the nomination.

Many of you have received one of these awards in the past and we’d appreciate if you could pay the recognition forward by nominating someone.

• Hall of Fame Award

• Service Award

• Innovation Award

• Young Alumni Award (less than 10 years from graduation)

The winner for each category will be recognized at the 6th Annual Packaging Awards Banquet in April 2016 at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing where it is co-hosted by the School of Packaging and the Packaging Alumni Association. Nominations are due February 19, 2016 and winners will be announced in early spring in preparation for the Awards Banquet.

Nomination forms can be found on the new website:

www.msupaa.org/awards

Please note that the 2016 winner’s nominations for the PAA Awards will be submitted upwards into the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Alumni Awards program the following year. Let’s help recognize and promote our own packaging colleagues within these award programs!!

Please submit your nomination to Tracy Nameth (tracy.nameth@gmail.com) or Cimberly Weir (cimberly@anr.msu.edu) by February 19th!

Let’s get the word out to the MSU packaging community and acknowledge these worthy individuals!

Thank you for your consideration,

Packaging Alumni Association Awards Team

The post Packaging Alumni Association Awards – Due Feb 19th appeared first on MSUPAA.

Following the VIP tour, the Fifth Annual Packaging Awards Banquet was held at the Kellogg Center. The Awards Banquet was made possible by support from the MSU Packaging Alumni Association and its sponsors. The evening was about recognizing and thanking the donor organization and the individuals who have supported the students of the school for many years, through event sponsorships and scholarships. The night was designed to acknowledge and showcase students and their accomplishments along with recognizing outstanding Alumni.

The MSU Packaging Alumni Association proudly awarded 10 scholarships to students this year. In addition, the MSUPAA named the following Alumni Award winners:
· Hall of Fame: Bridget Grewal
· Service Award: Kathy Grace
· Service Award: Susan Rand
· Young Alumni Award: Travis Key

It is with the support both through volunteering and sponsorship that the MSUPAA is able to support the students and the school. CONGRATULATIONS to all of the scholarship recipients and our outstanding alumni!

The post 2015 MSUPAA Awards Banquet UPDATE appeared first on MSUPAA.

The School of Packaging’s Alumni Association (PAA) presents four awards to deserving individuals for their service and career accomplishments within the following categories of Packaging below. Candidates may be recommended by packaging alumni, industry stakeholders, and through self-nominations.
• Hall of Fame Award
• Service Award
• Innovation Award
• Young Alumni Award (less than 10 years from graduation)

The winner for each category will be recognized at the 5th Annual Packaging Awards Banquet on April 16 at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing and will be invited on a VIP Tour prior to the banquet.

Please help the PAA by reviewing the nomination forms under Awards on the website. If you know of a very deserving individual that should be recognized for their service to MSU, service to the School of Packaging, and/or their career achievements, please send in a nomination by February 20th.

Please submit your nomination to Jenn Hoelzel or Dennis Bonn (jhoelzel@tabbpackaging.com or dbonn@menasha.com )

Thank you for your consideration and GO GREEN!
PAA Awards Team

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