Congratulations on your well deserved award. It sounds like you have continued to make a difference at both Iowa State and at your Company. You are truly an inspiration to us all.

As the first Stanley Chair of Interdisciplinary Engineering in 1996, I personally benefitted from many interactions with students, faculty members and members of Iowa industry. Two of the courses I created and taught with Dr. Howard Meets are still being taught and continue to give students the critical thinkiing skills they need for effectively working in industry. I know that one of them went on to form a company in Minneapolis selling Theory of Constraints (TOC) software to manage production. Another faculty member that took our courses went to a start-up company that went public after my wife and I helped them complete custom VLSI Chip design projects, on time, on scope and on budget.

I now work for the Goldratt Institute (www.goldratt.com) along with my wife. She has written a book entitled, “Velocity – Using Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma to achieve breakthrough performance..” It is already for sale on the Amazon web site even though it won’t be out until January. Howard Meeks will be at our Velocity Conference in November and continues to stay abreast on what is happening in the Process Improvement Field.

Again, my sincere thanks for creating a life changing opportunity for me and hopefully the Iowa State students that we worked with. We also continue to stay in contact with many of our non traditional students that drove as far as 90 miles (one-way) to attend the classes that Dr. Meeks and I taught.

All the best to you and yours,

Glenn David Bergland
Class of ‘62