About You:
First things first: my favorite flavor of ice cream is apple pie, and my favorite cheese is 3-year aged cheddar.
I grew up the youngest of 4 boys in Appleton, Wisconsin. My dad and two of my three brothers are PhD chemical engineers and alumni of BYU chemical engineering, a fact which greatly influenced my decision to pursue chemical engineering at BYU. After my mission in Peru, I met my wife in our final year at BYU, and we were married in my first semester of graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We now have 2 children and live in Pocatello, Idaho, where we look forward to taking advantage of proximity to family and a great number of national parks and forests.
Hobbies I wish I could spend more time on include family history, board games/board game design, and tennis. However, because keeping my children alive takes a lot of time, the hobbies I actually spend my time doing are dishes, church basketball, learning Italian, and getting oddly interested in random sports (most recently sumo wrestling).
About your Company:
I work for Wells Enterprises, Inc., a family-owned company about 4,000 employees strong that focuses entirely on ice cream production. Wells is headquartered in Le Mars, IA, a town officially known as the “Ice Cream Capital of the World.” We are the largest privately held ice cream manufacturer in the US, producing more than 200 million gallons of ice cream per year. Several brands fall under the Wells umbrella, such as Blue Bunny, Bomb Pop, Halo Top, and Blue Ribbon Classics, but we also make ice cream for many other customers. Ferrero, the Italian family-owned company famous for sweet treats such as Ferrero-Rocher and Nutella, recently acquired Wells. This acquisition has allowed us to make Ferrero-themed ice cream products such as ice cream candy bars (Butterfinger, 100 Grand, and Baby Ruth) and Trolli Gummy Pops.
Wells is currently hiring full time positions in R&D and engineering, and every year we have many summer internships in areas such as R&D, engineering, mechanical design, and continuous improvement (although I’m not sure if they will be accepting any more applications for summer internships). To see the open positions, please see the following Wells careers website: https://hcsb.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1
About your Role as an Engineer:
My roles at Wells have been in Research and Development, which is quite a bit removed from typical “engineering activities". My first role was in the Technical Services group in R&D, and my responsibilities included cost savings project, ingredient matching, and supporting the ice cream plants with science problems. Supporting the plants is where my process engineering and chemistry knowledge have shined, allowing me to understand the interactions happening between different ingredients through all the processing steps at scales ranging from molecular to bulk. My finest moment in that role involved creating a high throughput testing method that allowed us to find a solution to a problem threatening one of the company’s most important products.
My new role as of last year is in the Long-Term Research branch of R&D. I manage academic research projects that Wells sponsors, scout out new potential ice cream research, and manage Wells’ relationship with national organizations. Being on the cutting edge of ice cream science has been fun and rewarding, and I’m excited to see what new technologies and products I can help create.
While I haven’t done much new product development, I do have one product currently on the shelves: Blue Bunny Cand Bar ice cream (the 46 oz container, not the pint which has a different recipe). It is a very rewarding experience to be the designer of a product that you can buy at your local grocery store. But it’s a limited time product, so look for it quick!
About your journey:
My professional journey revolves around 2 main inflection points: one that was handed to me and one that I fought for.
Because of my family’s history with chemical engineering, I planned to go to BYU for chemical engineering and probably go for a Chem E PhD ever since I realized that dinosaurs and paleontology probably wasn’t going to work for me (so about age 9). I also always planned to pursue a PhD, similar to my family. I knew that one beneficial aspect of Chem E was the breadth of potential areas to work in, so it was just a question of finding what interested me. At BYU, I worked with Dr. Bundy doing protein engineering, Dr. Knotts doing thermodynamics outreach (where I finally figure out what fugacity meant), and I had internships at the Wisconsin-based water heater company A.O. Smith, however, I really fell in love with heterogeneous catalysis while working with Dr. Hecker.
I was accepted to the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined the lab of BYU alumnus Dr. George Huber, an expert in heterogeneous catalysis of biomass to produce green chemicals and biofuels.
Up to this point, things were going according to MY plan: go to BYU for Chem E, find an area I liked, go to grad school in that area. Simple. But here’s where things took a positive (and delicious) turn. Dr. Huber asked me if I wanted to do a standard Chem E catalytic project or if I was interested in a dairy project. Naturally, I chose the dairy project, and that set me on a completely different path than what I had expected. This dairy project let me work with another BYU alumnus, Dr. Scott Rankin of the Food Science department, and I slowly started becoming an expert in dairy processing and science. By the end of my PhD, food companies wanted me more than chemical companies, and I joined the R&D department at Wells in Iowa.
The next career inflection point came 2 or 3 years into my time at Wells. Things were going well, and my technical problem-solving skills made me valuable to the company. However, it was difficult to be so far away from family. I talked with my managers about our desire to be closer to family, and they informed me of a fully remote position that would soon be opening in the Long Term Research group within R&D. This was a major fork in the road where I would have to choose between my two biggest unique strengths: my technical problem solving, and my academic research background. We chose the latter and joined Long Term Research, and we are enjoying life close to family.
Advice for Students:
When considering jobs, think outside the box. Chem E has a reputation as one of the hardest degrees you can earn, and many fields will be interested in you that aren’t related to Chem E. Look at other fields, such as food science, and take a class or two in an area that interests you. Then apply for jobs you are interested in even if it’s not what you would typically consider relevant to a Chem E degree. Interviewers will often look at your skill set and your interest in that particular field more than just how well your previous job matches the next one. Wells liked me because I had process engineering knowledge and because I was clearly excited about ice cream R&D, not because my PhD in the catalytic upcycling of whey applied to ice cream. So do your homework on the company you are applying to and show lots of interest in them and their products.
When considering grad schools, don’t just look at the overall department ranking. Look at specific professors who you would like to work with, and make sure there is more than one in case plan A doesn’t work out. Also, pay attention to how the school feels when you visit and how well you feel like you fit in with the people. I felt like the people at UW-Madison were humble, good people despite the department’s high ranking, and that turned out to be the case. Perhaps the main reason I successfully made it through grad school was the goodness of the faculty and students.
When finding jobs, networking is of the utmost importance. I got my 1st internship with A.O. Smith because Dr. Fletcher set me up with them. The 2nd internship I got with A.O. Smith happened because I reached out to them late in the game and they created an internship position just for me. I got my job at Wells not because of the >100 job applications I did. I ended up connecting with a recruiter/headhunter, and she was the one who got me an interview with Wells. Many times, people in your network will make things happen to hire you, even if there aren’t any positions available online.
Be open with your managers if you feel you have different professional needs. Tell them if you feel like you want more experience in different areas, or even if you need to change locations. They can’t help you if they don’t know what you need. And if it’s clear from your conversations that they aren’t willing to help you, then you will learn that this company may not be good for you long term.
What’s in your Future:
I’m very happy with my current position in Long Term Research. My short-term future includes expanding my academic network and creating more academic research projects. I look forward to new products hitting the shelves that are results of research that I manage.
There are a couple of promotions available to me in my current path, so I think my medium-term future is staying the course with my current Long Term Research role. The promotions above me will probably see me take on some managerial responsibilities, which will theoretically open up more career opportunities. However, a lot will change by then as Wells more fully integrates into the Ferrero family.