{"id":253,"date":"2018-03-11T17:59:04","date_gmt":"2018-03-11T17:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakerlog.lssu.edu\/spring2018\/?p=253"},"modified":"2018-03-12T14:17:45","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T14:17:45","slug":"product-development-center-touts-olympic-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakerlog.lssu.edu\/spring2018\/product-development-center-touts-olympic-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Product Development Center (PDC) Touts Olympic Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Andy Liebner coaches a Mexican cross-country skier at the 2018 Winter Olympics, he will likely be using poles that Lake Superior State University’s Product Development Center<\/a> had a hand in developing. Liebner custom manufactures graphite composite ski poles out of a company he owns – United States Ski Pole Company<\/a> – in Cheboygan, Mich.<\/p>\n

Through Sault Sainte Marie’s Smartzone (SSMart), Liebner hired the PDC in 2014-15 to redesign and rebuild a machine used in the wrapping process of the ultralight carbon fiber poles. Two engineering students, Tim VerStrate and Phil Coullard, worked the rebuild on top of still another client-driven senior project required for graduation. That venture designed, built, and automated a\u00a0prototype CNC\u00a0milling\u00a0machine for Redwing, Minn.-based Mactech, Inc.<\/p>\n

VerStrate, originally from Escanaba, Mich., is a 2015 graduate in mechanical engineering<\/a>-vehicle systems concentration with an electrical engineering minor. He works for VanAire, Inc., a leading source of high-pressure gas valves and actuators for North America, located in Gladstone, Mich.<\/p>\n

Phillip Coullard, from Pickford, Mich., graduated in electrical engineering<\/a> with a digital systems emphasis in 2017. He works for Cloverland Electric, Dafter, Mich., a cooperative that provides service to Michigan’s Eastern Upper Peninsula.<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/span><\/h4>\"JohnJohn Shibley<\/a>
Photographer\/Staff Writer<\/span>

Shibley has been a writer, editor, photographer, and videographer in the public relations office since 1991, except for a five-year stint as hobby and planetary science editor at Astronomy magazine in the mid-90s, where he was a finalist for the American Astronomical Society\u2019s Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award.<\/p>\r\n<\/div> <\/div><\/div>\r\n\n

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Come to know Australia\u2019s people at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Center.<\/p>\r\n\r\n