Class of 2021 Celebrates Midyear Commencement

An electrical engineer whose mastery of business skills supercharged his vocation and
a graduating civil engineer on his way to an MBA are showcased speakers at Michigan
Technological University’s 2021 Midyear Commencement.

The ceremony, at 10:thirty a.m. Saturday in the Scholar Advancement Advanced Varsity Gymnasium, is the minute nearly 500 Huskies have been ready for as recipients of really hard-gained bachelor’s, master’s and
Ph.D. levels. They’ll be resolved by university student speaker Jay Czerniak, a civil engineering
major from Medford, Wisconsin, who graduates with a minor in philosophy and ethics.

Setting up a Vibrant Future — and Ice Cathedrals

Czerniak’s Michigan Tech story is constructed on a foundation of household and faith. He discovered
a second household at Tech as a member of St. Albert the Fantastic University Parish, regarded for its near-knit, welcoming neighborhood and its steadfast and stellar MTU
Winter Carnival participation through the decades — which includes the comparatively new custom
of setting up an ice cathedral for out of doors providers on Carnival weekend.

“I will be endlessly grateful to St. Al’s and for all these who have assisted me mature
not only as a qualified but as a human becoming during my time at Tech,” explained Czerniak,
whose time at MTU is not around. He returns to campus in spring semester 2022 to pursue
a master’s in business administration (MBA). In June, he designs to return to Wisconsin to start off his vocation as a project
manager with Miron Building, in which he beforehand interned. 

“I hear usually that faith is dropped in university but at Michigan Tech, with the mystery
of science and miracles of a attractive normal earth, there is sufficient option to
mature and mature in one’s faith.”Jay Czerniak, Midyear Commencement Scholar Speaker

“Michigan Tech was my aspiration college,” explained Czerniak, who learned about Tech from introductory
engineering classes at his high college provided through Challenge Lead the Way. “It topped the checklist for colleges in the Midwest. My love for snow, the outside and
a drive for a small-city environment produced Tech the great spot for me. Selecting a
major was also effortless. My grandfather operated his have small excavating organization. From
a younger age he assisted expose me to the earth of building. I was immediately hooked.
Civil engineering is the great major to work out my passion for building and style as perfectly as
my drive to engineer and problem address.”

Setting up a Management Legacy — and Household Traditions

The other Husky headlining Saturday’s occasion is graduation speaker Mike Pulick Jr., who constructed an exceptional vocation through establishing the business leadership skills
he very first learned at Tech. The 1986 electrical engineering (EE) graduate also is aware of about following in household footsteps — and in his scenario, these
techniques led to extraordinary household ties with Michigan Tech. 

A native of Livonia, Michigan, Pulick credits Tech as the portal to the leadership
skills he developed in a vocation that commenced at General Electric (GE). There, the former
MTU Blue Critical President, who led the massive organizational effort to stage Michigan Tech’s legendary Winter Carnival, took the following action in his vocation by finishing GE’s Manufacturing Management Software. 

“The blend of these two encounters in leadership and administration truly assisted
me in my vocation. I would go on to take on upcoming roles and cases that included
leading a vast range of men and women,” explained Pulick, who later on gained his MBA from The
University of Chicago. 

Immediately after twelve decades in various GE divisions, in 1999 Pulick joined W.W. Grainger Inc.,
ascending from vice president of product or service support administration to president of Grainger
Global. In 2015, Pulick joined the private equity agency Warburg Pincus, in which
he was government in home for the industrial and business support sector through
2019. 

Present chairman of the Michigan Tech Fund Board of Administrators, Pulick also serves on the Wencor Group, Kano Laboratories and Wittichen Provide boards
of administrators, and is an adjunct professor at Florida Gulf Coast University in the
Lutgert College of Business. He also served on the Michigan Tech College of Organization Dean’s Advisory Council for five decades. 

In preserving with his motivation to expose STEM (science, technological innovation, engineering and
math) pupils and experts to business, monetary and leadership encounters,
Pulick also beforehand served on the Illinois Institute of Technology Board of Trustees
and the board for Junior Accomplishment of Chicago. 

Pulick has a lot more than his have graduation to mirror on as he takes the speaker’s podium
Saturday. 3 of his siblings graduated from Tech with engineering levels. His older sister majored in mechanical engineering, his young sister in environmental engineering and his brother in civil engineering. 

But hold out. It will get greater.

“My older sister, young sister and I all married MTU engineers,” Pulick explained. 

Pulick’s favourite Michigan Tech memory is meeting his spouse, Liz. “I was a junior,
she was a freshman,” he explained. “Our very first date was at the theater in Hancock.” The
couple of 33 decades married in June 1988, soon just after she gained her mechanical engineering diploma.

Liz and Michael Pulick dwell in Naples, Florida. The couple enjoys northern Michigan
summers in Petoskey, Michigan and investing time with household, which includes their two grownup
youngsters, Eric and Rachael, and spouses Kelsey and Matt.

Setting up Aspirations — and Lifestyle-extensive Tech Connections 

Kanwal Rekhi, a visionary who has routinely worked to forward entrepreneurial skills
and instructional alternatives at Michigan Tech and all over the earth, will acquire
the Melvin Calvin Medal of Distinction during Saturday’s occasion. The medal is awarded to men and women related with Michigan
Tech who, like its Nobel prize-profitable namesake, have exhibited extraordinarily distinguished qualified and personal
accomplishments. Rekhi, who gained his master’s in electrical engineering from MTU
in 1969, is running director of Inventus Capital Partners in California.

Kristin Kolodge will supply the standard Alumni Welcome to the graduating course.
The 1995 mechanical engineering graduate presently serves as MTU Alumni Board president and is government director of human equipment interface at J.D. Electrical power.

Michigan Technological University is a public exploration college launched in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is household to a lot more than seven,000 pupils from 55 international locations all over the earth. Persistently rated amid the very best universities in the state for return on investment decision, the University features a lot more than one hundred twenty five undergraduate and graduate diploma applications in science and technological innovation, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health and fitness professions, humanities, arithmetic, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Exceptional in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, giving calendar year-spherical alternatives for out of doors adventure.