Education foundation celebrates silver anniversary

By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/2001

This year marks 25 yr of offering scholarships for the Material Handling Education Foundation Inc. (MHEFI). The Charlotte, N.C. based non-profit organization is dedicated to encouraging and supporting materials handling education.

Established in 1976, MHEFI provides scholarships and other funds, through private and corporate donations, to graduate and undergraduate students, as well as academicians and their institutions.

In 1999, MHEFI distributed $85,000 to 29 students. This year, MHEFI expects to donate over $100,000 in honor of its anniversary.

Twenty-five years earlier, however, funds were much more limited and only two students received scholarships.

One of the original winners, Russell (Rusty) B. Rose, is now the director of distribution for the fulfillment arm of Sara Lee Direct, Winston-Salem, N.C., which supplies consumers with Sara Lee branded apparel through retail outlets, catalogs, and the Internet.

Although Rose is very involved in materials handling, distribution and logistics is not what he planned on doing when he graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1977.

At the time that Rose applied and received the Henry Harnischfeger scholarship for $3,000, he was studying industrial engineering, thinking he would go into the building construction industry. When he graduated, however, he worked in the manufacturing industry for several years. Then he became a consultant in the distribution and logistics industry, where he worked for 10 yr.

During those years, he designed a 600,000 sq ft distribution center at Sara Lee, what he considers to be his greatest accomplishment in materials handling. He then went on to become the director of the facility–a dream come true for Rose.

Victoria Wheeler, director of member services at Materials Handling Industry of America, says MHEFI "looks forward to being able to provide another twenty-five years of even greater financial support, by always offering a highly motivated and educated base of future stars in the industry."

See next month's issue for an interview with the other original MHEFI winner, Stephen Parsley.