Paris Thompson (left) of the Mechanical Contractors Association explains the basics of a project to five engineering students acting as company owners on Wednesday in Benton Hall. Thompson and nine other representatives from the MCA were on campus to announce the formation of a student club and four scholarships funded by the MCA. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)
Prospective engineering students and their families were not the only ones excited for the new School of Engineering at the University of Missouri–St. Louis to begin classes in the fall semester.
Plenty of professionals in the industry were eagerly awaiting the opening, too.
“We were so excited when the UMSL’s School of Engineering was launched,” said Carly Carmosino, the executive director of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Eastern Missouri. “We want to bring students like UMSL’s into our industry. We want students who grew up here, who studied here and who want to live here. And there are so many fantastic contractors and companies in St. Louis that this was just a perfect fit. We want them to know, ‘Hey, we’ve got jobs. We’ve got internships. We have industry connections, and we can create partnerships with UMSL.’”
Carmosino and nine other MCA members visited Benton Hall on Wednesday afternoon with a full agenda. Along with Carmosino and Paris Thompson, the MCA’s director of education and workforce development, MCA was represented by Kurt Voss, Kevin O’Meara, Jay Edwards and Blake Goewert of Integrated Facility Services; Paige Theby, Nicholas Ringhausen and Nick Kniesche of Murphy Company; and Cory Hall of C&R Mechanical.
Not only were they there to announce the creation of four $2,500 scholarships, but they were on campus to drum up support for the soon-to-be-launched MCA Student Chapter at UMSL.
“A student chapter gives them opportunities to not only be involved with mechanical engineering here in St. Louis – to go on tours, meet with contractors and network – but it gives them the opportunity to travel, because we fund a lot of travel for them as well,” Carmosino said. “They can go out and meet other students from all over the country who are also interested in mechanical engineering, whether they’re studying civil engineering or construction management.”
From the very beginning of his time at UMSL, George Nnanna, the founding director of the School of Engineering, has talked about the importance of establishing industry connections.
This is exactly the type of partnership he believes in.
“We’re creating a pipeline for workforce development at UMSL,” he said. “So, as we train the students, the Mechanical Contractors Association will provide internship opportunities and even externship opportunities. The opportunity is really great.”
As part of the project, students held different roles in an attempt to assemble a specific pipe fitting design.
The origins of the MCA/UMSL Engineering partnership trace back to the welcome event held for Nnanna at the Saint Louis Club in the Centene Center in Clayton at the end of April. That’s when Nnanna first met with Thompson. When she heard about the welcome event, she made sure to be there to make an introduction.
“He was just beaming with pride,” Thompson said. “I thought, ‘This does not look like somebody who’s about to have to launch a school.’ This was somebody who was confident, who was clear and who was happy, and that made me even more drawn to his program. He had so much passion about what was possible for his students, even though they weren’t enrolled yet. When that energy is around you, you just want to exist in it, and you want to support it.”
In addition to the professional reasons for connecting with Nnanna, Thompson also was excited for the start of the School of Engineering for another reason. She’s a proud UMSL alum, too.
“He immediately responded when I said, ‘Hey, can we connect?’” she recalled. “We were able to immediately build a foundation, which included him inviting me to the summer engineering camp at UMSL. I had the chance to sit in the back of the room and watch what he was doing. I want to be in the fabric of what is being built here at UMSL, because I think it’s special.”
And being part of that fabric is why it was important for those involved with the MCA to not only start the student chapter at UMSL, but to immediately offer investment in the program by funding $10,000 in scholarships for the 2025-26 school year.
“That’s one of the big roles for the association – to invest in your industry and the future of your industry within your region,” Carmosino said. “Being in the St. Louis region, we want to invest our resources wisely to continue to strengthen our industry.”
It goes beyond just the money, too. By creating the student chapter, members of the MCA can help students understand how to eventually make the jump from engineering student to professional engineer. At the event on Wednesday, the students were split into groups of four or five and given roles – business owner, project engineer, foreman, etc. – to try and build a project.
Nnanna smiled as he watched the project unfold, with just a bit of controlled chaos. He’s long said that providing hands-on experiences for his students is a priority, and with the MCA, his program has found a partner that shares a similar approach to education.
“It’s more meaningful when you really understand an industry,” Carmosino said. “We have found that what they have learned about mechanical engineering is sometimes very different than what they have to know when they get into these positions. So, we also seek to bridge that gap and to get them job-ready.”
