My name is Ben Kolb and I am a graduating senior mechanical engineering student at Michigan Tech. I was born and raised in Green Bay,WI where I developed my outdoor enthusiasm and Cheesehead allegiance. Most of my free time growing up was spent outdoors: fishing, camping, running and biking. Michigan Tech was a place where I could continue these interests and do so while challenging myself in a prestigious mechanical engineering program.While at Tech, I became involved in Velovations, a cycling organization that engineers new products with bicycle industry sponsors. Projects that I have worked on have helped commuters and couriers of rural Kenya as well as winter commuters that struggle for traction in Houghton blizzards. I have also spent time in the organization working on bicycle vibration issues for major brake and frame manufacturers in the industry. The experience I gained during these projects has helped open my eyes to the exciting possibilities of a structural vibrations career after graduation.
Caterpillar took a chance on me after my 2nd year at Michigan Tech, giving me an opportunity to be the fatigue lab intern during the summer of 2013. When the job description involves breaking components with hydraulic presses capable of 550,000 pounds, it is impossible not to have a good time. The people I worked with were friendly and the trails and forests of the Illinois river valley were surprisingly serene and adventurous. I returned during the summer of 2014 as a Machine Dynamics and Shake Table intern where I worked with many of the same people from the previous summer. The group's role within the company was to validate light structures such as enclosures and guardrails using structural vibrations and full machine testing at the proving grounds. I will be returning to this group as a full time associate engineer upon graduation.
Maintaining a work-life balance will be very important to me as I leave academia and enter the real world. I am passionate about trail running and bicycle touring and have ambitious goals that will hopefully push me out of my comfort zone and past my personal endurance limits in the near future. I believe human power is the best and most rewarding form of transportation and that the distances that humans can physically travel by their own power is limitless. In my 22 years, few things have been more certain than the realization that more miles is always more fun!
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