Hyster-Yale Group recognizes National STEM Day with engineering and innovation programs

Coinciding with National STEM Day, Hyster-Yale Group announces several milestones and opportunities for engineering students through its longstanding collaborations with academic and career development programs from coast to coast. The company is sponsoring dozens of senior capstone projects, providing mentorship and internship opportunities, opening a new innovation lab and lending industry perspective to new university engineering programs. 

Innovation Lab at the University of Portland

The Hyster-Yale Group Innovation Lab will resume in January 2024 at the new Shiley-Marcos Center for Design and Innovation at the University of Portland. The lab was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic and construction of the new facility. The lab, which has been a model for other industry-university cooperation, immerses student interns in real engineering and product development projects. Four interns have already been hired into development and innovation roles with the company. The lab is led by Chief Technologist of Innovation for Hyster-Yale Group, Ed Stilwell, who created and taught an innovation course for several years at the university. 

Internships and advisory councils

The company works with other colleges in the communities where it operates to provide internship opportunities, including East Carolina University, Berea College, Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky. Hyster-Yale Group also serves alongside companies such as Lockheed Martin and Lexmark on the Eastern Kentucky University engineering advisory council. Anthony Wasson, Value Stream Manager, and Ken Deters, Director of Service Operations, are active on the council, which was established to provide industry perspective to the development and operation of the school’s new degree program in manufacturing engineering. At East Carolina University, the Warranty and Quality Improvement Manager for Hyster-Yale Group, John Roberson, also serves on an engineering advisory council. 

Hyster-Yale Group’s Counterbalanced Development Center (CBDC) in Oregon is in the planning process for 2024 internships with the Multiple Engineering Co-Operative Program (MECOP), a non-profit that works with member companies and universities in the Pacific Northwest to cultivate the highest level of engineering and business graduates by bridging academic theory with industry reality. Since 2000, more than 95 interns across mechanical, electrical, computer engineering and computer science disciplines have worked at the CBDC supporting various product development projects. At least 15 former MECOP interns are employed across the development team, working in design, validation, program management, software and simulation or virtual testing. 

Hyster-Yale Group posts internship opportunities for fall, spring and summer semesters at several locations. To learn more about all available internship opportunities or to apply, visit here.

University capstone projects

Each year, the CBDC sponsors capstone projects for 35 to 40 seniors from local universities. The students work in teams on eight to 10 real-world and often multi-discipline engineering problems provided by Hyster-Yale Group. In Greenville, North Carolina, the company’s Warehouse Product Development Center and manufacturing facility also host engineering students from East Carolina University completing their capstone projects. In both cases, students are guided through the process of developing viable solutions by mentors from the company, accessing valuable experience and insight to the field and developing relationships in the industry as they progress. Student teams have created specialized test equipment, innovative human-machine interfaces, improvements to forklift operator comfort, new sensing methods and other innovations at the leading edge of the materials handling industry.