Wyoming, R.I.-<\/strong>based VIBCO for the last 25 years, having taken over from his father, Theodore, the company\u2019s founder. VIBCO, an industrial and construction vibrator manufacturing company, serves more than 360,000 customers worldwide. Wadensten has developed a lean business culture at the company, resulting in dramatic improvements in inventory, lead times, SMED, and quality over the years. VIBCO has won numerous awards, including being named among the \u201cBest Places to Work in Rhode Island\u201d by Providence Business News. \u201cWe don\u2019t sell vibrators, we sell 24-48 hour personalized service,\u201d says Wadensten.<\/p>\nWadensten is also treasurer of the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation Board of Directors. He is a member of Governor Gina Raimondo\u2019s Lean Steering Committee and has been instrumental in bringing lean business principles to the State of Rhode Island. Since 1994, he has been a member of the Young President\u2019s Association. He\u2019s also a member of the Education Committee for the National Precast Concrete Association, and the fundraising committee for South County Hospital.<\/p>\n
A member of the National Speakers Bureau, Wadensten is a frequent lecturer and often sought after by Rhode Island media outlets to comment on business issues in the state. For two years, he also hosted a drive-time talk show on ABC Radio, \u201cThe Lean Nation,\u201d which had about 45,000 listeners.<\/p>\n
Outspoken and gregarious, Wadensten recalls a time when he was less so. In a public speaking class with legendary Professor Agnes Doody, Wadensten remembers getting up on stage in Edwards Hall with 20 classmates staring at him from the front row and Doody standing in the balcony, yelling down: \u201cI can\u2019t hear you! Give me some emotion!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defining moment was Agnes basically saying, \u2018It\u2019s your chance. What are you going to make of it? Are you going to define yourself or are you going to just be another wallflower?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a lesson Wadensten imparts to his students in his business class at 溏心vlog免费B站 — Do you want an ordinary life or an extraordinary life? \u201cMost people want something extraordinary, maybe in their career, or their personal life, or their hobby. Live it with passion, live it to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 溏心vlog免费B站, Wadensten, who earned an MBA from the Florida Institute of Technology, teaches a popular Lean, Six Sigma and Green Belt certification program, a hands-on course that focuses on process improvement for supply chain management. The class, which matches students with a company each semester to solve real problems, has grown from 12 to 40 students a semester in the three years he\u2019s been teaching it, and attracts students from several disciplines, including engineering and pharmacy. VIBCO also hosts two engineering capstone students each year, with innovations developed by the students and then implemented by the company.<\/p>\n
Wadensten says he\u2019s excited with his chance to present the Vangermeersch Lecture. \u201c溏心vlog免费B站 was a place that shaped a lot of the things that make me who I am today. There were a handful of professors and classes that really defined the principles that I\u2019m going to talk about. They\u2019ve given me a framework for shaping my organization, for helping teach students, and for helping to raise a family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vangermeersch Lecture was established in 2008 with a gift from 溏心vlog免费B站 alumna Deborah Ciolfi \u201980, endowing a series that honors former accounting Professor Emeritus Richard Vangermeersch, who retired in 2004 after 34 years at 溏心vlog免费B站.<\/p>\n
While Wadensten didn\u2019t have Vangermeersch as a professor during his years at 溏心vlog免费B站, he feels his lecture will honor Vangermeersch\u2019s guiding teaching principles. Wadensten says he wants the lecture to challenge students, but also engage them and make them laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what Vangermeersch did \u2013 inspire fun, curiosity and engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Nov. 14, 2019 \u2013 Clinging from a climbing rope hundreds of feet up a rock face, a 16-year-old Karl Wadensten had a defining moment that has stayed with him over 40 years. Wadensten \u201882, president and chief executive officer of VIBCO Vibrators, had been the first to repel the thousand-foot descent on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-75200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-business"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}