KALIDA — Ohio State University faculty and staff visited Unverferth
Manufacturing on Thursday as part of their Roads Scholars Tour.
The
50 faculty, community partners and administrators traveled by bus from
COSI in Columbus to the Transportation Research Center in East Liberty
and then Unverferth Manufacturing. After their visit in Kalida, they
planned to head to the Toledo Zoo still on Thursday. Friday, the tour
was going to take them to the Toledo Museum of Art, The Andersons in
Maumee and Cooper Tire in Findlay.
“We’ve been doing this since
1997,” Ben Johnson, Director of Media and Public relations at OSU, said.
“It’s a chance for the faculty and staff to experience industry and
community first-hand.”
While at Unverferth, the OSU faculty
listened to a short presentation about the company, observed a quick
panel of OSU graduates working at Unverferth and went on a factory tour.
“Unverferth
is a terrific example of how great ideas really build on themselves,”
Bruce McPheron, Executive Vice President and Provost at OSU, said. “We
have a great relationship with them, we have interns that come up here
and alumni that work here.”
The opportunity for faculty and staff
to visit Unverferth was seen as a chance for the staff to further build
their relationship with the company and interact with current and
possibly future alumni. Those at Unverferth saw it as an opportunity to
show the staff what their students will do upon graduation.
“The
biggest thing is the collaboration between the two places to show them
what the expectations are in the real world,” Greg Unverferth, Manager
of Manufacturing, Engineering and Continuous Improvement, said.
Both the staff at Unverferth and at OSU saw this as an opportunity to build up the relationship between the two.