Senior Conor Koesterman grew up in Arlington, Tennessee, just outside of Memphis. His whole family calls Knoxville home, now, having migrated east with him to Rocky Top. He has welcomed having them close by.
“Having my family in town has been such a blessing,” he said. “This year I have been able to spend much more time maintaining those relationships than when they lived farther away.”
They have cheered him on as he focused on his industrial engineering studies.
“My goal through my time in ISE is to live up to the challenge set by Professors [Floyd] Ostrowski and [Xueping] Li,” said Koesterman, “to learn everything I can while I am here and to deliver value to every organization that I get to be a part of in the future.”
On the forefront of this value sharing is his senior design project working with Coats Industries in Middle Tennessee.
“It has been a privilege to work alongside their engineers to address sustainability concerns at their facilities in La Vergne, Tennessee,” said Koesterman. “This project has been a prototype of the virtual-based senior design project for our department. I am excited to see how our lessons learned can assist the next rising class.”
He is grateful for opportunities to build on his network and experience multiple work environments through a co-op at Altec and an internship with Protomet.
“My professional communication and confidence grew more through those opportunities,” he said. “I got the chance to self-advocate and had to work to get projects pushed through each organization.”
These opportunities, plus ISE faculty advocacy and mentorship, helped support his continued ISE studies.
“This department has given me the opportunity to earn my spot here financially and academically,” he said. “With that spot, they have given me the education of a lifetime.”
Koesterman returns the Volunteer spirit by serving as an engineering club leader at area grade schools as part of his role as an ISE ambassador. He is active with the Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society’s Tennessee Alpha Chapter, promoting philanthropy and lifelong learning, and is a member of the recently established project management club.
“The ambassadors organization has taken a large amount of my time throughout college, and I love those relationships,” he said. “I also enjoy being involved with serving students at West High School in a mentorship program.”
Koesterman balances out his engagement with physical activities such as skiing, biking, and working out. He is also an avid reader of biographies, histories, leadership books, and great literature. He plans to enter the engineering
workforce after graduation, with an eye on returning to UT to pursue a master’s degree in engineering management.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight that I am a product of the ISE department,” he said. “The faculty who have invested in me and the peers who I sit next to have made me who I am today.”
Contact
Randall Brown (865-974-0533, rbrown73@utk.edu)