Thomas Garabedian has an eye on the future. While at the URI Engineering, he majored in Industrial Systems Enginering and minored in Business Administration.

Thomas came into URI as an undeclared engineering major, but quickly determined that Industrial and Systems Engineering really sparked his interest. He says it’s a different type of engineering– it is engineering that makes things work better. It is this need to make things work better that led Thomas to a number of his projects while on campus, including tools and simulations to improve staffing and trip planning process at a Killingly, Connecticut Frito-Lay plant, redesigning ergonomics for a company in Tennessee, and improving information flow through an office redesign at Vibco in Wyoming, Connecticut.

Immediately following graduation, he will be working for Stanley Black & Decker in their Operations Leadership Development Program, giving him the opportunity to spend three eight-month rotations around the U.S. learning aspects of how Stanley Black & Decker is run. His first destination is Columbus, Ohio where he’ll be spending his first rotation in one of their distribution centers.

While leadership is key to his goals for the future, he is willing to see where the next two years take him. He notes he’s interested to see what experiences he will have over the course of the program with Stanley Black & Decker, experiences he hopes will help further shape his path in the years to come.

This student received a 2016 University of Rhode Island College of Engineering Excellence award in their field of study. We are honoring this achievement by profiling them individually and looking at what makes each of them someone to look for big things from in the years ahead.