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Liz Haworth

Life as an Engineer – Jon Hilyard

By Engineer Life
My dad was an engineer and he liked to say that being an engineer is about doing for a nickel what any fool can do for a dollar. I guess only an engineer would think that is a great sales pitch for being an engineer. But I think it is true. Being an engineer is not just about solving a problem. It is about finding the best, most elegantly simple solution.
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Life as an Engineer – Scott Siefkes

By Engineer Life
For me, being an engineer fits my personality. I like understanding how things work, why they work the way they do, and I like figuring out how they might work better. EE fits well in that it offers broad access to lots of different engineering problems, including how to make things operate with as little energy waste as possible. Plus there’s all the fame and fortune…
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Life as an Engineer – Jeff Ihnen

By Engineer Life
I went to a tiny rural-area school with no career planning.  I never heard of engineering in high school, but I took what came naturally to me my freshman year in college: calculus, physics, chemistry.  There I learned about engineering and that jobs are in high demand and the pay is great.  This is still very much the case and it always will be.  As a junior, I learned that the thermo-fluid sciences were all about output over input, which is, efficiency.  I’m also an efficiency nut in that I cannot look at a process or function without imagining how…
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man wearing glasses and blue dress shirt smiling for picture

Life as an Engineer – Zack Thompson

By Engineer Life
To me engineering simply means identifying a problem and finding a solution, i.e. problem-solving! This can be through designing or building something or through tweaking the way something already works. I don’t think someone becomes an engineer just through formal education. It’s the way someone thinks, either with a math and science oriented brain or through deconstructing and rebuilding just to see if they can fix a problem or understand the inner-workings. There are a lot more engineers in this world than the ones with the degrees, some of the best engineers don’t have the formal education. National Engineers Week…
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Guest Post: I Get So Emotional, Baby

By Energy Rant One Comment
Sorry, it’s not Whitney Houston, or Jeff Ihnen, writing this week’s Rant. It’s Kristin Laursen filling in while Jeff puts his feet up, sips martinis, and listens to 90s love songs (at least two of the three of those are true). Last week in Jeff’s Rant, he told us that consumers rule and drive everything, and that we’re “notoriously bad at math and buy for emotional and other reasons.” I can personally attest to the bad at math part, but the buying based on emotions can be explained through behavioral economics. Behavioral economics gives us insight into human behavior to…
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Paris: The Bumbling Abominable Snow Monster

By Energy Rant 4 Comments
June 1, 2017.  Does that ring a bell?  To many, it is a day of infamy – the day Trump bid adieu to the Paris climate deal, accord, treaty, or whatever (Paris).  Since then, I have read many an article, LinkedIn posts, and Tweets filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Was Paris that good?  Does anyone reading this know the details?  I decided to dig in and synthesize it to hors devours, which seems kind of French.  Right? The broad objectives of the agreement include three things: Hold temperatures to well within 2 degrees C relative to pre-industrial temperatures.…
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Michaels Energy Expands Ownership

By Archive No Comments
Michaels Energy Expands Ownership La Crosse, WI - April 25, 2014 - Michaels Energy is excited to announce it has expanded company ownership to include three key employees - Scott Siefkes, Bryce Dvorak and Ryan Kroll.  These Department Managers join majority shareholder, Dave Waffenschmidt, and the planned successor, Jeff Ihnen, in company ownership. The ongoing ownership transition process has identified these new owners as part of the next generation of company leaders.  The owner/employee model allows Michaels to pursue the type of work its employees are passionate about. "Michaels' internal transition of ownership allows us to maintain our level of…
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Michaels Energy Celebrates 30 Years of Business!

By Archive No Comments
Michaels Energy Celebrates 30 Years of Business! La Crosse, WI - March 24, 2014 - Michaels Energy is celebrating 30 years of business this week!  Since its founding in 1984, Michaels has maximized cost effective energy savings for efficiency programs, facilities, and processes through both energy efficiency and building system design services. Michaels' dedication to this mission and its clients has led to the success the firm sees today. "Our success and longevity is the result of the hard work of a lot of people, and our dedication to proactively meeting our clients' needs," said company President, Dave Waffenschmidt. In…
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