Inspire t h e g i v i n g n e w s l e t t e r o f p r at t i n s t i t u t e Spring / Summer 2013
Conrad Milster Creates Endowed Scholarship at Pratt Gift To Benefit Industrial Design Students
Peter Tannenbaum
C
Pratt Institute Chief Engineer Conrad Milster
onrad Milster has spent virtually his entire adult In 1965, Milster became chief engineer of Pratt’s life at Pratt. What began as a visit to see the power plant—the oldest steam-generating plant of its power plant’s nineteeth-century steam engines turned kind in the Northeastern United States. As such, the selfinto a career as one of only four chief engineers in the trained engineer oversees the operations and planning Institute’s 125-year history. Milster has long since of an intricate system that affects the entire Brooklyn made his mark on the Pratt community by running campus. He also serves as the conservator of the engine the power plant, which supplies heat for the entire room, which now functions primarily as a rare showcase for machinery from the Brooklyn campus and is a “Pr att i s o ur life. An d 1900s in its original source of fascination for i f a n o r ga n izatio n nineteeth-century students, faculty, staff, location. At the time, and visitors. Now he’s p r ov i d e s yo u r the engines represented extending his impact l i v e l i h o o d, it sho u ld cutting-edge technology, through a generous gift b e a two -way street.” and Pratt was eager to to create the Phyllis –Conrad Milster display its technological and Conrad Milster Endowed Scholarship, which will provide scholarships prowess, which included electric lights. in perpetuity to students in Pratt’s Industrial Design “This was part of the philosophy that engineering was going to make the world better for us,” said Milster. program. The scholarship is named for Milster and his late Today, design and design thinking also play that wife, Phyllis, who began working in Pratt’s purchasing role, becoming as essential to business and marketplace division in the late 1960s after she and Milster married. success as they are to communications and products. She later moved over to the Institute’s facilities Given Pratt’s leadership in design and design education, Milster’s scholarship will help ensure that the most management office, from which she retired in 2004. A native of Astoria, Queens, Milster first visited talented students have the opportunity to obtain the Pratt in 1958 at the suggestion of his Long Island highest-quality education—regardless of their financial City High School machine shop teacher, Jacob backgrounds. Grathwohl, who also taught in the Institute’s industrial For Milster, the gift is a way to pay tribute to his engineering program. Milster returned the following wife and to give back to the organization that has come day to photograph the steam engines and met the to define his life, as it has for so many faculty and staff chief engineer, who had an opening for a mechanic. “I members. “Pratt is our life. And if an organization thought it would be interesting for a couple of years,” provides your livelihood, it should be a two-way street,” he said. recalled Milster. “And I never left.”
INNOVATION FUND SPURS NEW THINKING Seed grants to support faculty/staff projects
W
hat could you do with $20,000? That’s the the fields of art, design, and philanthropy, who will question Pratt Institute is asking faculty and recommend the most innovative projects to President staff across the campus this year with the launch of the Schutte for his final selection. Award announcements Innovation Fund, a new initiative developed from the will be made in the spring, and the call for proposals has already generated Strategic Plan that will “ Th e I nnovat i o n F un d 17 strong applications provide seed funding in the first round. for groundbreaking encou r age s fac ulty a n d “The Innovation faculty and staff staf f to ta k e r i s ks a n d Fund encourages projects. exp er i m en t w i th i d e as .” faculty and staff to take With $100,000 –Peter Barna risks and experiment in funds allocated to the Innovation Fund for 2013, the Institute plans to with ideas that could pave the way to new research, award a minimum of five grants this year. Proposals programs, or course offerings that reach the entire will be reviewed and scored by a panel of leaders in Pratt community,” said Peter Barna, Provost. To that
end, the Fund also aims to promote cross-disciplinary projects and faculty collaborations, as well as projects that have the potential to attract future philanthropic or government support. “The quality and range of the proposals submitted thus far is very impressive, and includes some imaginative partnerships across academic disciplines,” said Todd Galitz, vice president for Institutional Advancement. “These proposals really speak to the caliber of our faculty and the important work they are doing at Pratt. I’m confident that many of these projects will attract additional support from foundations and other private funding sources beyond the initial seed support that the Innovation Fund provides.”