 to accept the Purdue Distinguished Engineer Award. Why? Because it was so unlikely I would go to Purdue or become an engineer. Let me explain. I grew up in the little town of Ferdinand about 2,200 people in southern Indiana. My dad had a modest jewelry store on Main Street that had to support a family of eight, which meant he repaired watches for many other jewelers in the area to support our family. Throughout high school, I worked in that jewelry store after school, summers, and weekends. Dad taught us to engrave and solder and order and keep the books. He shared how every customer was important, whether they were buying a diamond ring or a $5 watch band. And if the farmers in the factories didn't have a good year, we wouldn't have a good year. I learned how to run a business well before completing high school. It was clear that mom and dad expected us to go to college, but we would have to figure out how to pay for it. Hence, starting at the jewelry store for a dollar an hour, I was the fourth child in five years. Two older siblings were already at IU, one at Notre Dame. Yes, I knew I would go to college, but I also knew I did not want to be teacher, a nurse, or accountant. The things that most women were expected to do at that time. I was already a feminist. As a junior in high school, I took drafting because other girls didn't do that. When I got there, I loved it. And I learned that many of the young men in my class were going to become engineers. I realized then no one had ever talked to me about being an engineer. I was good at math. I was a good student. So I went to my counselor and said, what about engineering? He thought I had lost my mind. I went home, shared with my dad, and luckily my dad really encouraged me. Several months later, my high school was having a college night. So my mom and I went to attend, and I knew that Rose Holman would be there, which was the place many of those young men were going to attend engineering school. We sat in the gentlemen at the front and said, why are you here? And I said, because I want to be an engineer. He said, well, we don't take women in engineering. Now, understand this, those 1977 West Point had just began allowing women in their programs. So I said, oh, but by then he said, you are not welcome here. So it should be no surprise that I would pursue Purdue, even though it was the mortal enemy of my rabid IU family. I could not have made a better choice. Purdue's Women in Engineering program was exceptional. I didn't know, but in fact, Purdue had more women in engineering than anywhere else in the country with about 10% of our classes being women. Now that sounds small, but that was a huge number back then. Freshmen engineering pretty much ate my lunch. You know, I had convinced my Purdue counselor that my senior math actually included calculus. Not so much. I worked my tail off that year. And in addition, the physics, the calculus and chemistry were a lot. I'm thankful that I was a part of the All-American Marching Band, which helped me let off steam every day and be with some amazing people. I also met an IE graduate student who told me about industrial engineering and the value of co-opping. Well, by the second semester, I met Professor Jim Varney, Mr. IE, like hundreds of other IE students. He took me under his wing and helped me find a co-op company. I chose General Motors because I could get exposed to all elements of IE in my rotations. It was exceptional. If drafting got me into engineering, co-opping kept me there. I'm not sure I would have stuck it out through all the physics, calculus, and theoretical engineering courses without a knowledge of what IEs really did and that I would be good at it. I graduated during a recession in 1982 and the only students who were getting multiple job offers were those co-ops. I turned down General Motors because, if you remember then, they were going through a little bit of a rough patch with the foreign competition. I took a job with Michelin Tire Corporation in South Carolina because they paid me 10,000 more than anyone else. While they were a great company and I still keep Michelin's on my tire, it was not a good fit for me. I stayed just one year and then I called up my third offer, which was Frito-Lay. I still recall picking up the phone and saying, Charlie, you probably don't remember me and he said, oh yes I do. I shared my story and asked if they might still have a job for me. He said, of course. What plant do you want? Now, what I didn't understand is he had been promoted from director of IE to VP of operations, meaning he oversaw all of Frito-Lay's 40 plants. Well, should I just say the rest is history. I loved Frito-Lay. Well, maybe not the third shift hours in production, but I learned to manage a plant and work with people. I loved the intrapreneurial spirit of Frito-Lay. I learned simplex, creative problem solving now called Simplexity. I became an internal consultant, facilitator and trainer and managed their process improvement program, which saved half a billion dollars in five years. When we decided to come back to Indiana, Frito-Lay asked if I would become a consultant with them and their consultant, Dr. Minbaster, asked if I would become an associate of his. So at a ripe old age of 26, I had my own consulting firm and would continue to do that work for 20 years while I completed a master's and PhD in industrial engineering at the University of Louisville, would then go on to work at the University of Southern Indiana as the founding director of their Center for Applied Research, followed by election as an Indiana State representative and then elected as Indiana's 50th Lieutenant Governor with Governor Mike Pence, and now entering my fifth year as president of Ivy Tech Community College. As a parent, I know the importance of having a strong STEM academic foundation and encouraging girls to go into STEM careers. When my oldest daughter Lauren was a junior in high school, I required her to attend Purdue Women in Engineering. I think it might have been under duress. She wasn't so sure she wanted to do that. While we did it, I thought I may as well take my seventh grader, Cara, along as well. She, when she heard one of the young women speak about her career with the CIA, Cara looked at me and said, Mom, you mean if I become an engineer, I could work for the CIA? I said, Cara, engineering opens up lots of good opportunities, and I know that firsthand. Well, Cara made her decision to be an engineer in seventh grade. Lauren was not so sold, but she was willing to entertain the thought. After months of college visits, we sat down, did a criteria chart of all those schools and programs, and sure enough, Purdue engineering came out on top. She began there, changed her major her junior year to neurobiology, and now teaches chemistry. The younger daughter, Cara, became a National Merit Scholar, had lots of choices, but also chose Purdue, Purdue Biomedical Engineering because of the quality of the program. She has since completed a master's and PhD in biomedical engineering at Wash U and now works for the IU School of Medicine. Jim and I have a blended family now of four daughters, their husbands, and five grandchildren plus a sixth on the way. My strategy with the grandkids is to begin singing Hail Purdue as a lullaby when they're little, and by the time they can walk as toddlers, we are marching around the room singing Hail Purdue. To complete the trifecta, I am their STEM granny. We talk about what engineers do, we read books, and of course we play toys that build analytical thinking and creativity. The strengths of IE's is our ability to study and optimize systems. Statistics, human factors, ergonomics, and cognitive studies have prepared us well for a world that's moving to AI, predictive analytics and big data. We learn a huge toolbox like Lean Six Sigma, economic analysis and simulation. I brought these tools with me as Lieutenant Governor and again as President of Ivy Tech. In fact, we regularly engage Purdue, IE senior design teams and Purdue solutions at Ivy Tech to help us analyze and conceptualize new solutions to our systems and process challenges. As Indiana's community college with more than 150,000 students across 18 campuses, we play a huge role in raising Indiana's post-secondary attainment and ensuring workforce credentials are aligned to Indiana's economy and eliminating equity gaps so all Hoosiers can prosper. I am honored to receive the Purdue Distinguished Engineer Award. While engineer has not been in my job title for quite a number of years and my own career runway is getting short, I hope I have contributed to the engineering discipline, to industry, to our state, and to the lives of Hoosiers and I hope I've even raised, recruited, and hired a few good Purdue engineers along the way. Boiler up!