Young Engineering Alumni Give Back
Eight years ago, twin brothers David and Thomas Sturgis left UMass Amherst with bachelors degrees in chemical engineering and job offers from Proctor & Gamble (P&G) in Cincinnati. They packed away their marching band uniforms but not their memories of grueling courses, beating MIT, Brown, and Northeastern in engineering design competitions and many Class of 2000 social outings. In recognition of their UMass Amherst education, the brothers have each made donations for scholarships to the College of Engineering that were matched by P&G.
They recently spoke about their experiences on campus and how they were inspired to give back to UMass Amherst.
Tom: I remember being with the Marching Band to see the football team win the national championship in 1998. We left campus at 8 p.m. and flew down in the middle of finals week. A couple of hours of sleep on a gym floor and we were up to go to the 1 p.m. game before flying back for some more finals. But what I really enjoyed at UMass was its balance between being a big and small school. There are so many sports teams and activities to keep you busy, yet some of our engineering classes had only 20 students in them.
Dave: Tom and I won the Tau Beta Pie Regional Engineering Competition and snapped MIT’s six year winning streak. I fondly remember the “CAVE” (aka the Chemical Engineering Computer Lab) all of the late night studying and antics there to keep things fun.
Tom: I don’t think I could have been any better prepared for the workforce. UMass Amherst has an excellent focus on practical engineering that prepares you to contribute in industry from day one after graduation.
Dave: There is nothing I have encountered in seven years that I was not exposed to at UMass. I keep all of my engineering books right at my desk and have used almost all of them. I have done many of the things we learned, from studying specific chemical reactions and their kinetics, to balancing a heat exchanger.
Tom: My role as a senior engineer at P&G reflects the versatility and value of the engineering degree because I don’t do anything associated with “traditional” engineering. My job is to obtain as much consumer understanding as possible through focus groups, interviews, and product usage and translate what we learned into successful products. I have worked on the Pantene brand and the Gillette/Venus brands.
Dave: It isn’t too much of a coincidence that Tom and I ended up at P&G. P&G was one of the companies that came to campus seeking interns and we both ended up spending a summer working in Cincinnati. We each received full time offers the summer after our junior years. It helped make for a less stressful senior year. I am a senior process engineer for Old Spice Deodorant. That means I am responsible for taking a new formula and delivering it to the manufacturing plant.
Tom: If a college degree were a business, there would be no better return on investment than an engineering degree. I know that my scholarship gift will yield returns to a student many, many times over upon graduation. Hopefully, he or she will feel as honored as I am to be a UMass Amherst engineering alum and they too will be in a financial position to return the favor to another future UMass Amherst engineer.
Dave: I give to UMass because I believe in the engineering program. Many young people think you have to go to a very expensive private school to get a good education. That is not true. At UMass, the engineering department is very good and very competitive nationally
Tom and Dave Sturgis grew up in Boxborough, Mass. Their father, Arthur Sturgis ’65 and uncle, Paul Sturgis, ’71, are also College of Engineering alumni.
