Engineering Economic Growth

For one recent Grand Valley engineering graduate, all the dire talk about the Michigan economy served as a call to action. That alumnus, Ryan Phillips, founded his own company that is poised to contribute to the West Michigan economy.

“I hit the point where everybody was complaining and worrying about the economy, but I didn’t see people doing a lot about it,” Phillips said. “And I said, ‘Why not?’ I’m not going to be the one to sit here and complain about the city that I love to live in. I’m going to take a stab at making things better and try it myself.”

Phillips’ company, Magnum Engineering, will be a supplier to loudspeaker companies. Magnum bought a vacant 28th Street facility and a third of Rockford Acoustic Designs’ manufacturing equipment. Rockford closed its manufacturing operations in Grand Rapids in May, ending a 60-year history of producing loudspeakers in Grand Rapids. Phillips performed six terms of co-op work there doing loudspeaker design for car audio under the Rockford-Fosgate name.

Phillips graduated from the School of Engineering in August with degrees in three disciplines: electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and product design and manufacturing engineering. It is rare for a student to complete degrees in two disciplines — three is unheard of.

Magnum Engineering was created to support other loudspeaker manufacturers and will provide engineering services, product development, testing, failure analysis, and manufacturing of loudspeakers.

“My history is with loudspeakers, specifically in large power and large diameter loudspeakers. I hope to use my knowledge to advance the field. Starting Magnum gave me the opportunity to do what I enjoy doing for at least a couple more years,” he said. “I have spent the last four years developing loudspeaker models to better test them, all relating to their power handling and endurance. This ultimately influences product quality and how loud they are.”

Phillips said there are no good tools to measure loudspeaker power, so he turned to some of the best engineering minds he could find — his fellow Grand Valley students. In an unusual move, Phillips’ company sponsored a team of senior engineering students to work on some tools as part of their senior project. It was the first time in the history of the program that a student sponsored a project.

“That was a hard one to swing by the faculty,” Phillips said. “First, I got some resistance to the idea of a student sponsoring a senior project like this.”

The senior project prepares students to be leaders and innovators. To complete the project, interdisciplinary teams of students solve real-world engineering design problems sponsored by participating industries and other organizations. The projects take two semesters to complete; at the end the companies who participate have an actual working product. The costs for the sponsoring industries are materials and a small project fee — the students are not paid for their work, but instead gain college credit and valuable work experience.

Phillips said that he lives for projects. Two of his student projects are up for patents, and one provisional patent has almost matured.

“One of my favorite projects was leading a GVSU team to develop one of the world’s most powerful loudspeakers. We were dubbed ‘Team Monstrosity,’ because the speaker was 27 inches in diameter and weighed 150 pounds,” he said.

In fact, it was his love of hands-on work that drew Phillips to Grand Valley. He hails from Charlotte, near Lansing, and started at Lansing Community College. He said he was attracted to Grand Valley’s program because of its mix of rigorous academic work and state-of-the-art practical experience.

“What I liked most about Grand Valley’s program was the hands-on nature. We have a strong theoretical side, but all of it is really designed to make you a better engineer, somebody who can do something,” he said. “There’s a saying that a technician can be useful to a company immediately, but an engineer takes two to four years before they’re profitable to a company. With the hands-on experience we have at Grand Valley, I think we’re useful long before then.”