Naval Base - University Develop Relationship
NAVAIR Lakehurst and Rowan University both continue to profit from engineering partnership

Monday, October 21, 2002 - NAVAIR Lakehurst and Rowan University officials met today at Lakehurst to discuss their ongoing Educational Partnership Agreement, established in 1999, that benefits both organizations through the sharing of people and resources. Since the inception of the partnership, the joint efforts of these two organizations has resulted in several engineering and design projects from Lakehurst to be worked by teams of Rowan students from the College of Engineering in conjunction with their Clinic Projects Program.

According to Doug Swope, an engineer at Lakehurst and the base liaison to Rowan, the partnership has been a great success for NAVAIR Lakehurst and Rowan University. "We have been able to present their engineering college with numerous real world engineering challenges and the students, under the guidance of their professors have had the opportunity to work for one or two semesters in an effort to come up with solutions. Lakehurst gets some quality work done with minimal time and cost outlays and the Rowan students get an opportunity to get some hands-on training and experience that they would not normally obtain in a classroom."

In addition, Lakehurst is an active participant in Rowan's recruitment fairs, having interviewed numerous engineering students for possible future employment. To date, four graduates have been hired for advanced engineering positions, several others have been given summer intern positions and one professor, Dr. T.R. Chandrupatla, the Chairman of the Mechanical Engineering Department has worked as a summer consultant for the past several years in Lakehurst's Manufacturing Department.

Officials at Lakehurst and Rowan are extremely pleased with the arrangements of this agreement and the benefits entailed. They hope to see it continue into the future, as they are on the cutting edge of industry and academia working together to better meet the needs of their respective institutions.