In celebration of its 25 years at Michigan Technological University, the Enterprise Program has awarded eight inaugural Enterprise Distinguished Service Awards to recognize the dedication and exceptional contributions of advisors and champions who have played pivotal roles in shaping the program’s success. The recipients of the Enterprise Distinguished Service Award are Brett Hamlin, Glen Archer, Rick Berkey, Jason Blough, Brad King, Robert Pastel, Tony Rogers, and Christopher “Kit” Cischke.
Each of the award winners has more than 15 years of service within Enterprise, dedicating their time and expertise to guide teams, ensure student success, and advance the program’s discovery-based learning mission. The eight advisors have also fostered industry collaborations and strengthened the bridge between academia and industry.
This eight-part series highlights the contributions of each award recipient.
“My role with Enterprise has truly been multifaceted,” says Rick Berkey, Michigan Tech’s director of Global Campus and continuing education. “I joined in 2006 as the sponsored projects manager and I worked with corporate partners to get projects for the students. My professional background was in industry — I worked in the automotive and defense sectors — so it made sense that I would enter higher education that way. But I wanted interaction with students. Two years later, Jim Hertel, an instructor in the engineering fundamentals department, was looking for someone to take over advising the Supermileage Systems Enterprise, so I raised my hand and stepped into that role in fall 2008. And it was a great decision.”
Three years later, in 2011, Berkey started teaching Six Sigma courses with the Enterprise Program, and taught those through 2022. “Six Sigma is a methodology for improving business processes. The courses I taught were short (1-credit) professional development courses, with modules that were designed to complement the work students were doing in Enterprise.”
In 2015, Berkey became the director of the Enterprise Program while continuing his teaching and advising the Supermileage team. He served as director until 2022.
“My involvement with Enterprise has been a highlight of my professional career,” Berkey says. “I have a good 360-degree perspective of the program because I’ve been involved in multiple facets of it — fundraising, advising, teaching, and directing. And that perspective helped me be better in every aspect of the job. Advising a team helped me be a better program director, for example.”
The Supermileage team, which Berkey advised through 2023, is one of Michigan Tech’s Advanced Motorsports Enterprises and builds a single occupant, high-efficiency vehicle that competes in the Shell Eco-marathon competition.
”My first year advising, the team earned second place, and I believe it was the highest fuel mileage the team had ever gotten,” he says. “It had nothing to do with me — I had just taken on the role of advisor — but I got to be there to celebrate with them, and that first year set the bar pretty high. And while it’s great to have that competitive spirit, the real trophy is students getting to build their skill sets and their professional resumes.”
Berkey notes that students learn important lessons in leadership, management, the transfer of knowledge and mentoring. “By design, the most experienced people on the team always leave when they graduate, so there’s an issue of how to keep the momentum going when there’s turnover. In that way, it’s similar to collegiate sports. And the students figure out how to do that through Enterprise and they apply it in their careers going forward. In fact, one of the most rewarding parts of being involved in this program is seeing and talking to alumni — I’ll see them recruiting at Career Fair or we connect on LinkedIn — and they still talk about their Enterprise experience and how well prepared they were to enter the job market.”
Berkey notes that the role of advising an Enterprise team is unique, “because you’re not the sage on the stage, so to speak. You’re more of a coach and a mentor, and you’re fostering students to lead themselves.”
“An Enterprise is much more like a workplace than a classroom, and it’s more collaborative. You get to say to students, ‘I don’t have the answers, but we can figure this out together.’ Sometimes it’s figuring out how to ask the right questions instead of having the answers.””
For Berkey, one of the most rewarding aspects of advising in Enterprise is being able to see students grow over multiple years. “A lot of instructors don’t get to see that,” he says. “An Enterprise advisor gets to see that development journey and you can reflect on how much they’ve grown. Advisors get a lot of requests for letters of recommendation for jobs and graduate school, because you get to know the students in a way that maybe their other professors don’t. It gives you a chance to see the students use the program to develop and decide what they want to do next. It’s unique compared to other teaching assignments.”
Berkey says Enterprise is also unique in the world of higher education. “I’ve benchmarked other universities and there really isn’t another program like this, where it’s multi-year and multidisciplinary, and you have a group of students who are very diverse in their backgrounds and skill levels. Every team is unique in its own way.”
On receiving the Enterprise Distinguished Service Award, Berkey says, “I’m very grateful and appreciative to be recognized for the time and the effort. Sometimes it’s a labor of love, and being recognized formally is an honor, and I’m very grateful for that.”
About the Enterprise Program
Michigan Tech’s Enterprise Program offers students a unique, hands-on learning experience that goes beyond the classroom. With more than 25+ Enterprise teams spanning disciplines such as engineering, business, computing, and science, students collaborate on real-world projects sponsored by industry and government partners. Enterprise students develop technical expertise, leadership skills, and teamwork experience—preparing them for success in their careers. Many teams work on cutting-edge innovations, from automotive and aerospace to sustainability and emerging technologies.
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