Unlike most engineers, growing up, Eric Baumgartner wasn't the kid building things in his garage. And yet, his love for science fiction and Carl Sagan books opened a world of possibilities beyond his small hometown, eventually leading to a fascinating career driving rovers across the surface of Mars. Today, Dr. Eric Baumgartner is president of the Milwaukee School of Engineering. But before returning to academia, he turned that childhood fascination with space into a decade-long career at NAS...

Established companies have scale, capital, infrastructure and decades of experience. Startups have the benefit of fresh thinking and fewer constraints. But disruption and winning in 2026 and beyond doesn't belong to either one. The advantage goes to organizations willing to question assumptions, eliminate complexity and move fast. Slate Auto is disrupting an established market. They're challenging the price and complexity of buying a car. They're redesigning vehicles to be a blank slate (pun ...

School funding, teacher pay, CTE, Workforce Pell, competency-based education, technical careers, automation and industry credentials are all part of a changing conversation about education in Wisconsin. In this episode, host Matt Kirchner sits down with Tom Tiffany, U.S. Congressman and candidate for governor of Wisconsin, to discuss how he would approach education and workforce policy at the state level. Tiffany shares his views on education funding and accountability, teacher compensation, ...

At IACMI, aerospace companies, material suppliers, startups, universities, and national laboratories gather around the same table, often with the same goal: finding the next composites breakthrough. In this episode of The TechEd Podcast, Matt Kirchner sits down with Chad Duty, CEO of IACMI - The Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation, to explore the materials, technologies, and partnerships shaping the future of advanced manufacturing. Chad explains how composites are bein...

In an age where anyone can create content, how do manufacturers (and people in any sector, really) know who to trust? In this episode of The TechEd Podcast, Kerry Gumas, CEO and Executive Vice Chairman of Gardner Business Media, joins Matt Kirchner for a fascinating conversation about trust, expertise, and the future of information in American manufacturing. As content becomes easier to create and AI transforms how people discover information, Kerry argues that trusted expertise is becoming m...

For the first time in more than half a century, NASA is preparing to send humans around the Moon, laying the foundation for a sustained lunar presence and the eventual journey to Mars. Just months after the successful completion of Artemis II, Sharon Cobb, Associate Program Manager for NASA's Space Launch System, returns to The TechEd Podcast with a behind-the-scenes look at the engineering, manufacturing, testing, data and emotions that went into the successful Artemis II mission. Sharon sha...

Innovation doesn’t always look revolutionary. Sometimes it looks like putting shredded cheese in a bag. For more than 70 years, Sargento Foods has built a business around seeing possibilities in places others might overlook. From pioneering packaged shredded cheese and resealable packaging to spending a decade developing a new natural cheese, innovation at Sargento isn’t a one-time initiative. It’s a pipeline stretching years into the future. CEO Louie Gentine joins us to share the unlikely s...

The United States produces some of the best STEM researchers in the world. But there’s a structural mismatch in how many of them are trained: roughly two-thirds of STEM PhDs in fields like engineering ultimately work in industry, while doctoral programs remain largely designed around the academic research environment. In this episode, Tony Boccanfuso, President and CEO of UIDP, joins us to examine the disconnect between doctoral education and the careers most STEM PhDs actually pursue, why in...

Apprenticeship is no longer synonymous with the construction trades. Healthcare organizations are training medical assistants and registered nurses through apprenticeship. Schools are using the model to prepare teachers. Employers are applying it to occupations from arboriculture to human resources. At the same time, more high school students are using Youth Apprenticeship to begin building skills and gaining paid work experience before they graduate. So what actually makes something an appre...

For decades, the GED has been viewed as a second chance to finish high school. But with employers struggling to find talent and millions of Americans looking for a pathway to better work, that definition is increasingly outdated. More than 21 million people have earned a GED since the program began, with another 150,000+ graduates each year. Many are working adults pursuing the credential for a very practical reason: they want access to a better job, career training or continued education. At...