 He was like we're going to put rockets on balloons and take them and launch them off balloons. My name is Mike Hepfer and I'm a co-founder of a startup company that we founded while we were here at Purdue. I came to Purdue in 2015. A big part of why I came to Purdue is I'm originally from Michigan and I wanted to go somewhere where I knew I could try a bunch of different things and I'd have a lot of unique opportunities. One of the biggest memories that stand out was the first semester I was here and I was talking to this guy and he was telling me about this crazy idea. He was like we're going to put rockets on balloons and take them and launch them off balloons. He kind of won me over and he made me believe that oh yeah you could do that. That's actually super feasible especially here at Purdue. I found whenever I had a problem or whenever there was something I was trying to figure out or I just needed advice I could walk into a lot of different doors. They were all super willing to help and be flexible which was huge. I think the big giant leap for me here at Purdue was how Purdue helped me a lot with personal development and I thought that was huge. It allowed me to jump way outside of my comfort zone and really figure out that yeah everything's fine just go for it. One thing that was really cool is we got to kind of build an environment where students could go and learn more about anything aerospace. Even if it wasn't aerospace it's a great group to help people get outside of their comfort zone and to become better at working in teams and really develop some of those skills that you don't get a lot of in the classroom. So I think leaving my footprints here at Purdue would have to be through that student organization and just seeing what all those students are doing now is pretty incredible. Looking back my time here thanks to Purdue I get to wake up every day and I go to work and it's something I want to be doing and because of that time here I got to figure out what I wanted to do. It let me try so many things that I was able to find the one I really enjoy and how to make money doing it. That was Mike Hepford. Look for more stories at purdue.edu.com.