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Just let me be an engineer again. That’s the thought that kept running through Dr. Philip Voglewede’s head as his sabbatical approached.
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How Dr. Philip Voglewede found excitement and lessons galore on a sabbatical spent far from academia. And he’s not alone. BY GUY FIORITA
Dr. Philip Voglewede in his work home for a year, Eaton’s Power Systems Division in South Milwaukee.
Normally when professors take yearlong sabbaticals, they work on research projects, teach unique courses at other institutions or write books. What they rarely do is go back to work in an entry-level position in their field. But that is exactly what Voglewede did last August, after eight years at Marquette. For 10 months, the popular associate professor of mechanical engineering worked full time as an engineer for Eaton’s Power Systems Division in South Milwaukee. During a time of year when Voglewede otherwise would have been in a classroom teaching sophomore dynamics or graduate-level robotics — or advancing prosthetic ankle design in his research lab — he was getting a taste of real-world engineering. “When I first petitioned Marquette, I said I wanted to get back to work as an engineer,” he recalls. “I wanted to see where my students go and find out how engineering is done today to be a better teacher and better my understanding of engineering.” Once the school agreed, Voglewede approached four local companies; all were receptive to the idea. His offer was too good to refuse. Whoever took him would get a doctoral-level engineer for a price similar to that of a new grad. He chose Eaton, which designs and manufactures devices and systems for electric utilities, because of the work they do with motion. “When I first came on I told them, ‘Don’t put me in a management role. Let me be an engineer again. Let me be down in the trenches,’ ” says Voglewede, who served several years as a resident engineer at Whirlpool Corp. in Ohio before earning his doctorate at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Back on the front lines in South Milwaukee, he worked on modeling, designing and testing of an electrical switchgear, specifically reclosers,
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