Two Students Receive TAPPI's Highest Student Chapter Awards

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Congratulations to Kenneth Kildahl from the University of Minnesota and Aislinn Brackman from the State University of New York – ESF. They are winners of the 2013 Outstanding Student Chapter Member Award. This is perhaps the most prestigious award TAPPI offers to a student chapter member.

Ulrike Tschirner, Faculty Advisor at the University of Minnesota notes that "due to Kenneth's influence, our Student Chapter is the most active we have had in years. He has recruited a large number of new members and initiated several activities such as fundraising through selling coffee mugs or handmade paper, and three large (and successful) grant applications. The grants were a group effort, but he clearly took the lead. Through these efforts we were able to send 12 members to the TAPPI PIMA Student Summit this year.

Aislinn Brackman worked as a senior marketing coordinator at King & King Architects in Syracuse while taking classes part time at Onondaga Community College. A co-worker suggested to her the papermaking program at SUNY-ESF. As she learned more about the program she was excited about the possibility of going into such a specialized field with excellent scholarships and almost guaranteed job placement after graduation. Aislinn is involved in many organizations on campus. She is the outgoing president of the Undergraduate Student Association and treasurer of Papyrus Club, a member of the Empire Forester, ESF's yearbook, and AXS, ESF's honor society. Her scholarly activities allowed her to interact with many members of the campus' administration and faculty and serve as a representative of the PBE program. She also helped make the paper and bioprocess engineering program more visible to the student campus community, many of who have had no idea that Walters Hall even existed.

We are pleased to recognize these two deserving students.