Photos by John Sibilski
paying it forward
Medical device maker Medela has a new co-op program at its U.S. headquarters thanks to the efforts of Sarah Loeffel, Eng ’09.
Alumni who gained pivotal experience through Marquette co-ops help introduce a new generation of students to real-world engineering. By Ann Christenson After Sarah Loeffel, Eng ’09, finished the first term of her Marquette co-op experience at Baxter Healthcare in Round Lake, Ill., she returned to Marquette with a head start on some of her classmates. And she knew it immediately. “I could relate something from every single engineering class I was taking back to the work I was completing at Baxter,” recalls the native of suburban Chicago. From the get-go, Baxter — a global manufacturer focused on therapies for hemophilia, bleeding disorders and immune deficiencies — gave her “hands-on experience” within the company’s reliability group. The lab testing and test protocols, as well as writing and presenting of test findings, offered “a very cool way to expose an engineering major to the real world,” she adds. Her work at Baxter, combined with related coursework at Marquette, sparked the enterprising young graduate’s entrepreneurial instincts after graduation, when she was hired by Medela, a European company specializing
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in breast-feeding pumps and medical vacuum technology. Working at the company’s U.S. headquarters in McHenry, Ill., Loeffel discovered that Medela did not have a co-op program in place. With the full support of her boss, Loeffel took her mission to Laura Lindemann, director of industry relations, who coordinates the college’s co-op program. Beyond simply establishing a Medela co-op program, the key was building a connection between the healthcare technology company and Marquette that would benefit them both — expanding opportunities for biomedical engineering students and creating a pool of potential candidates for Medela’s workforce. So instrumental was her co-op experience to Loeffel’s academic career that she believes co-oping should be a requirement for all MU engineering students. She told Lindemann exactly that. Seeing nothing but a win for her company and the budding engineers, Loeffel and her boss devised a list of