The ISA Pulp & Paper Industry Division is pleased to award the 2021 $2000 PUPID Scholarship for the second time to Andrew Jamison McCabe from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A member of the University’s Honors Program, Andrew raised his GPA from 3.79 to 3.83 this year. Andrew will graduate this December with a Bachelor of Science in Paper Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Applied Mathematics.
Describing his school activities and leadership roles: Since last year when I received the 2020 PUPID Scholarship, I have been fortunate to hold the position of President at the local student section of TAPPI. Going into this role I expected an entirely different world, let alone a different mindset, but have been fortunate to work with a passionate executive board of students that have worked together to put on over two dozen events this past year. These events range from volunteering to employer nights and have been a stable way of creating the community we are so accustomed to here in our ‘paper family’ despite the current global situation.
Andrew’s other scholarships include:
- Major Elbert A. Welsh Education Award (2020)
- Armstrong Energy (2020)
- WMU CHEG Endowed (2020)
- ISA PUPID Scholarship (2020)
- Voted ‘Outstanding Student for Community Involvement’
- Charles E. Bayliss (2019)
- TAPPI Process Control (2019)
- Haenicke Institute Scholarship Recipient (2018)
- Paper Technology Foundation Recipient (2016 – Present)
- WMU CAES (2016 – 2020)
Regarding his extracurricular activities and hobbies, Andrew says; “I still care for home repair and woodworking. This past year has also enabled me to visit my partner out west where she temporarily worked as a conservationist crew lead at Petrified Forest National Park. Here I walked the aptly named Devils Playground loop in the middle of the summer - a 8-mile loop I turned into a 13-mile hike by mistake. As I graduate at the end of this year, I also hope to be able to take some time off to hike the 3100-mile Continental Divide Trail from México to Canada. The freedom this inspires often distracts me here at home and is something I believe I must do”.
Andrew goes on to describe the most important things he has learned from his employment is “People. I continue to become more passionate about teams working well together and wish to see myself continue to learn more in this field. In my work at Wieland, the general contractor building the new Graphic Packaging International K2 ‘BRONCO’ Paper Machine, I have now worked with over a dozen subcontractors and have worked on the early parts of bid deliberation as well as executing said work in the field. It is my paper experience that means I have been able to contribute to a team that has already built several mills in the country. It is working with these many groups of people, through varied subcontractors, that I have continued to learn about project management and the effect it plays on every size project as well as to appreciate a diverse background of people. Nearly everyone I work with is from Texas, Louisiana, or Arkansas – I have been fortunate to learn to appreciate their homes as a place of beauty from their varied stories and photographs.
In talking about his Need for the Scholarship, Andrew says that specifically, this contribution to my schooling would pay for some of my summer courses I am taking this year to be able to graduate by the end of the year. The courses I am taking are Physical chemistry, discrete mathematics, and organic chemistry 2. This funding would of course enable me to focus more time on my studies and less time on my work (until I finish my hike at least!).Interest in GPS, Paper and Allied Industries. The graphic printing sciences, paper, and affiliated industries, specifically paper machine runnability and improvement, offer such an array of technical challenges that I believe I will never be an expert at any of these subjects. I constantly enjoy personal improvement and learning. It is these industries that I continue to believe offers the most to learn from of any industry. With this new construction taking place there is many opportunities for me to get involved in instrumentation and all aspects of the controls behind these great machines. I believe going forward that I wish to work in the maintenance department at a mill at some point and to get a Masters In Electrical Engineering so I can pivot out of machine runnability and into design. My courses right now include Fourier transforms and signal processing through an advanced calculus course and I am thoroughly enjoying these topics.