Alum's degree research evolves into new company

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—As a doctoral student, Deepak Ravindra wanted to solve a current societal or industrial problem.

He collaborated with Professor John Patten on a new technology greatly advancing the machining of hard and brittle material, eventually forming a company that Ravindra started to build in earnest his final year of graduate school.

The young CEO has reached the lofty goals he set as a student, and he continues to ascend.

Within just two years of completing his doctorate at WMU, Ravindra connected with 160 companies to identify 25 as strategic partners—a group that has a cumulative value of some $100 billion. Today, he says, more than 80 percent of those companies are his existing or near-future customers.

“I am very proud of WMU, and almost everyone working with me has a WMU connection,” he says. “It is great sense of accomplishment to see things happen and to make an impact in such a short period of time.”

Read more about the  successful CEO of Micro-LAM Technologies in the Summer 2016 research issue of the WMU Magazine.