Wichita State's Innovation Campus gained its first major corporate partner this spring when Airbus Americas, one of Wichita's airplane manufacturing companies, inked a deal with the university to move some 400 employees and its Wichita engineering center from Old Town to a building soon to be built on campus.
“This commitment by Airbus, one of the world's leading design and manufacturing companies, represents a major step forward for our students and state,” says WSU President John Bardo. “This secures WSU's future as a global center of engineering and will encourage other world-class firms to locate on our campus.”
The announcement was made March 24, when Barry Eccleston, Airbus' CEO for its North American division, explained that the partnership with WSU is taking place for the same reason that the France-headquartered Airbus moved to Wichita in 2002 in the first place: Good engineers are located here. Airbus' Wichita location opened with 30 engineers and was the company's first design and engineering facility outside of Europe. Today, Airbus Americas Engineering, a wholly owned subsidiary of Airbus Americas, oversees Airbus' growing U.S. engineering activities and employs some 600 people based in two engineering centers. One is in Mobile, Ala., and the other will soon be on campus.
Well before the Airbus-WSU partnership agreement, there was a strong Shocker presence at AAE. John O'Leary '01 – who holds a bachelor's degree in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the U.S Naval Academy, a master's degree in aerodynamics from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a master's degree in business administration from WSU – is vice president and general manager. He's the aerospace executive who has been with AAE since its inception in Wichita more than a decade ago and whose charge it is to “build the business.” A former project engineer and program manager at Hawker Beechcraft and before that a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, O'Leary leads all aspects of AAE, overseeing its engagements in the development of aerostructures and cabin engineering solutions for every major Airbus product. “Our presence on the Innovation Campus,” he says, “will help us enhance products and business processes. The campus provides an environment that fosters the transition of innovative ideas into real-world uses and value for the company.”
Another WSU graduate working at AAE in Wichita is Laura Bernstorf '04, an industrial engineering graduate and now a senior project management specialist. Thinking ahead to the upcoming move, she says, “I've enjoyed the activity and closeness of a busy downtown, but there is an energy and excitement of being on campus that can't be matched. I was exposed to so many different ideas and interests during my years at WSU that I relish the thought that I can be immersed in that environment again. A place where people and ideas, from unrelated areas, are introduced to one another in many different ways so that they can merge into new concepts for progress.”
As a resident of WSU's Innovation Campus, AAE will be able to not only access support infrastructure, including engineering labs, research faculty, and educational opportunities, but also interact with other members of the Innovation Campus. Residents will also be able to take advantage of WSU's applied learning model, which engages students in real-world engineering projects, helping them develop critical engineering skills.
“I can attest to how important applied learning experiences are to helping students decide the right place for them in the professional world,” Bernstorf says. “Even with excellent professors and curriculum, I wasn't sure engineering was the right place for me until I started my internship. There are benefits to having students integrated into your team from the business side as well. I've found that students are excited to apply the theories from their studies, and many times they also bring additional technology skills. Sometimes, the biggest benefit to both sides is that students are still in the practice of asking why, of challenging the way things are done. Students are asking so they can understand, but many times it helps the experts see better methods and new possibilities.”
John Tomblin, WSU vice president for research and technology transfer, says, “Airbus' presence on campus will allow them quick and easy access to our research and testing labs, faculty expertise and student employees.” He adds that Airbus has already built a partnership history with WSU, especially through its dealings with the National Institute for Aviation Research. “In recent years, Airbus has contracted recurring composites and manufacturing training for its employees,” he explains. “Plus, Airbus recently performed full-scale structural testing of an A350 XWB pylon structure in our Aircraft Structural Test and Evaluation Center. The pylon was designed by Airbus' Wichita engineering office, and the test was the first of its kind to be conducted outside of the company's European facilities.”
Headquartered in Toulouse, France, Airbus entered the competitive world of aviation industry with its A300, the world's first twin-engine, wide-body passenger jet. The A300 program began with an agreement signed by the French transport minister and the German economics minister at the 1969 Paris Air Show. Today, Airbus has a global reach with fully owned subsidiaries in the United States, China, Japan, India and the Middle East; spare parts centers in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Washington, Beijing, Dubai and Singapore; training centers in Toulouse, Miami, Hamburg, Bangalore and Beijing; and more than 150 field service offices around the world.
Clearly, location plays a key role in innovation at Airbus and elsewhere. But the right place doesn't count for much without the right people – the idea people.
AIRBUS STARTED TAKING SHAPE in the summer of 1967, when ministers from France, Germany and Britain agreed “for the purpose of strengthening European co-operation in the field of aviation technology and thereby promoting economic and technological progress in Europe, to take appropriate measures for the joint development of an airbus.” In reaching this agreement, idea people from the three nations were acknowledging an economic truth: without working together on the development and production of aircraft, Europe would be left in the dust of American innovators, who dominated the industry.An inordinate number of America's aviation innovators set up shop in Wichita. Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, Matty Laird, Lloyd Stearman, Dwane Wallace '33 and too many other entrepreneurs, business administrators and engineers to name: all contributed to Wichita's becoming known as the Air Capital of the World. Many of them had close connections to Wichita State and its predecessors, the University of Wichita and Fairmount Colleg, but none closer than the ties forged between the university and Wallace and his wife, Velma née Lunt.
An active alumnus, Wallace of Cessna Aircraft fame was instrumental in founding, in 1965, the WSU Endowment Association; he was its first chairman. In 1976, the Wallaces set up WSU's noted Wallace engineering scholarship program. Since then, hundreds of students have benefited, including Bernstorf, who notes, “I'm proud to say we have a good-sized group of Wallace Scholars in our Airbus office. Many of my colleagues are proud Shockers.” About Airbus' move to campus, she adds, “I think Velma would be excited to see the business community creating a strong link back to future employees. She and Dwane knew how important it was to invest in future leaders and give them opportunities to experience the community. One benefit of this partnership will be the unique experiences for students and faculty to see the application of theory in the business world.”
Bardo announced Innovation Campus plans in January 2014 and leads efforts, through the Wichita State Innovation Alliance Inc., to work with companies, investors and governments to develop the 120-acre section of campus on what was the Braeburn Golf Course. Airbus, when it makes the move to campus, will take over a two-story, 90,000 square-foot building yet to be built. The development firm MWCB LLC, led by David Murfin, Nestor Weigand Jr., Ivan Crossland Jr. and Steven Barrett '89, will finance and manage the project, called for now “Partnership 1.” The building will be located north of 17th Street, near NIAR's headquarters and also close to WSU's planned Experiential Engineering Building and Community Maker Space. Airbus expects to occupy its new building by January 2017.
O'Leary, for one, is looking forward to the move.
“Innovative ideas come from our people while they are busy addressing the engineering challenges of today. They naturally come up with ideas about how to do things better,” he says. “The question then is ‘How do you get those good ideas from a person's head and into our value chain?' And, ‘How do we do it quickly?' Placing an Airbus engineering center in close proximity to the capabilities
of NIAR, the new Experiential Engineering Building and the Community Maker Space will provide a unique capability within Airbus. It is a capability that is not replicated in many locations or industries across the globe. As our people come up with ideas, they will be able to quickly test, adjust and then re-test those ideas within the facilities of the university. It is this ability to quickly translate a good idea into a business advantage that causes the Innovation Campus to make sense for us.”
Clearly, the right people in the right roles at the right time are key to sparking innovation. There's yet a third important thing in the innovation equation.
“THIS SUMMER, WE'LL SEE site preparation for Innovation Campus infrastructure and the construction of the Experiential Engineering Building and Partnership 1,” Bardo says. “But it's not just the physical campus that's changing. The spirit of innovation is what's most important, and we're sensing that everywhere on campus.”
Tomblin agrees. “It's an exciting time to be at Wichita State,” he says. “The Innovation Campus concept originated as a mechanism to achieve the goals of the university's strategic plan. A few examples of those goals are applied learning, interdisciplinary curricula, and accelerating the discovery, creation and transfer of knowledge. Although these are university-generated goals, progress toward meeting them will provide significant benefits to our campus partners, as well as help grow our region's and our state's economy. And through partnerships with global corporations such as Airbus, the campus will have a world-wide scope in effecting positive change. We have high spirits for all kinds of innovative thinking and action here.”
Bernstorf, too, sees a special spirit at work at WSU and in the Airbus community, albeit one with a different aspect. She says, “I know that Velma encouraged Wallace Scholars to mentor one another and give back to their communities. Our entire Airbus office has been involved with some form of community service, whether participating as mentors in the Airbus Flying Challenge or volunteering for WSU College of Engineering K-12 Outreach events, or supporting the United Way and other nonprofits. With Velma's words in mind, I think you could say that we all share that Shocker spirit.”
Or as Bardo, O'Leary, Tomblin and others might like to add to Bernstorf's phrase: “that Shocker spirit of innovation.”
Airbus' Family of Wide-body Planes: A330, A350 XWB, A380
Wichita is home to Airbus Americas Engineering, which oversees Airbus' growing U.S. activities.
At the Wichita design office, some 200 engineers work on the company's flagship jet airliner, the A380, along with other long-range Airbus jetliners.
The A380 – a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner – is the world's largest passenger plane. (The next largest is the Boeing 747-8.) Airports at which the A380 operates have upgraded facilities to accommodate it.
After its maiden flight on April 27, 2005, the A380 entered commercial service in 2007 with Singapore Airlines. It provided seating for 525 passengers in a typical three-class configuration or up to 853 people in an all-economy class layout.
The A330 is a medium, wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner. Its origins go back to the mid-1970s, as one of several derivatives of Airbus' first airliner, the A300. Since entering passenger service in 1994, the A330 has allowed Airbus to expand market share in wide-body airliners. The largest operator of A330s is Air China. Competing twinjets include the Boeing 767, 777 and 787.
Designed to succeed both the A330 and A340, the A350 XWB is a family of long-range, twin-engine, wide-body jetliners. It is the first Airbus with both fuselage and wing structures made mostly of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer. Its variants seat 280 to 366 passengers in typical three-class seating layouts. After the prototype first flew in 2013, Qatar Airways became the type's launch customer on Jan. 15, 2015.
