Amonsen-Voss Endowed Faculty Chair in Engineering Innovation
In 2024, Edwin J. Amonsen Jr., ’70, and Katherine R. Voss created an estate gift that will establish an endowed faculty chair for a position that combines teaching, student mentoring and research focused on engineering innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization. In addition, they created a fund that will provide program support for the holder of the chair to help students turn their ideas into prototypes, engage in research and travel, as well as to collaborate with the College of Business and host guest lecturers and innovators in residence. “Innovation requires business and technology skills. For OSU to become a trend-setting university, we need to break down silos between areas like business and engineering,” they say.
Ed Amonsen was raised by parents who didn’t attend college and encouraged their children to pursue STEM. For a Portlander who built transistor radios in grade school, an OSU mechanical engineering education was an easy choice. His two brothers followed him to OSU. Ed’s degree got him his dream job in vehicle design, first at Ford’s headquarters in Michigan and then Volkswagen. His hobby was building sports cars out of junkyard parts and racing them (including against Paul Newman). He qualified for the Sports Car Club of America national championship races eight times. Ed and Katherine met in the MBA program at the University of Michigan. A faculty member introduced them to an opportunity to build Whedco, which manufactured industrial automation motor controllers. Ed became president and Katherine marketing director. After Whedco was bought by GE, Katherine served as president of ODVA, a global association of automation companies, where Ed was director of finance. The couple worked together for 35 years.
“We believe higher education is essential for most people to achieve prosperity in their lifetimes. Everyone should be able to afford a quality education,” the couple says.