From concept to can: Inside ID Pro

In ID Pro: Interdisciplinary projects at Virginia Tech, one of the kinds of projects that we have for students is partnering with an industry partner. This last semester we were working with a local company, Wilderness Mountain Water. We have a very unique water source here. So it's in a category called flowing artesian, which is the highest level of water on the FDA. There was a lot of engineering optimizing of systems work to be done, but they were also really interested in promoting the quality of their water. So we've done three different projects with Virginia Tech. And then we've done the ID Pro team here. The group in the fall basically set about designing a can and packaging specifically for Virginia Tech. The group here in the spring is actually getting to see it run. Overall, this has been an interdisciplinary engineering project. It takes people from different disciplines all across the Virginia Tech campus. So it kind of blends a lot of different perspectives into one. Our main goal with our brand is to educate specifically college students on our campus about the differences in water that they might not realize. Industry has the opportunity to work with students much earlier than their senior year. For students, it allows them to take risks to start with hands on projects to start working with industry and sometimes with faculty really early so that they're starting to learn how to be professionals. We've had industry work on projects with students in the fall, in the spring and then offered them an internship. And they go to career Day as junior. Companies will look at their resume and go down it and say, here. Tell me about this. It is a project. It is hands on. It is experimental. I’m just really committed to the new students and getting them life experiences to let them really step into that first job successfully. I think it's just an important piece to see the excitement, see the energy. Getting them to think about things in a different way. And I like the mentoring/coaching/education side of that. It's really exciting, I think. I love being in food manufacturing facilities in general. It's really cool to see so many people in there also come together, and they're putting a lot of work in. Obviously, they're working through a lot of bumps in the road to make sure that our product comes out well and it's something we're proud of. We're excited for everyone to experience it and taste it and see it at the Expo.