Paying it Forward: Meet five people daily #128
Meet five people daily and collaborate for a better world. Each can contribute and you grow while learning and building your network.
Jack Browne, Wichita Falls Times Record News edition, Sunday August 17, 2025
All people are social animals. We learn from others and together in collaboration, we can accomplish big things.
Impact comes from the right connections, offering each the opportunity for continued growth and contribution to the good of others. Hence my metric: Meet five new people daily.
Understand those you meet well enough to support and help them in their goals, for together, bigger things can be accomplished.
Recently I followed up with Dr. Bob Brennan, Dean of the McCoy College of Science, Mathematics, and Engineering.
We met at the graduation of the Road to College Summer Camp and decided we should share coffee and ideas for bettering our community.
Dr. Brennan’s life story is one of opportunities pursued as presented. Growing up in a construction family, he met his wife while playing football at the University of South Dakota. His wife’s academic success led him to his first STEM job as a lab technician. Moving to various universities as his wife’s career progressed, he was mentored by professors at multiple universities to pursue degrees in biology and landed at 3M as a microbiology research specialist.
Hired as a professor at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmund, he became associate dean of mathematics and science. MSU recruited him last year to lead the McCoy College of Science, Mathematics and Engineering.
Brennan is actively connecting MSU with schools and industry to entice K-12 students to consider Science, Technology, Engineering and Math studies. He understands the need for communities to develop their own work force for the future.
The last week of June, MSU hosted a Young Engineer Summer (YES) Day Camp for middle and high school students. The one-week intensive summer camp included workshops and activities overseen by engineering faculty and included a tour of Howmet Aerospace in Wichita Falls. Homet provided a grant to make the camp possible.
I invite you to meet with Brennan, especially to collaborate as an industry partner who can offer internship, mentors or even perhaps participate as a member of a STEM careers panel.
I congratulate him on the new electrical engineering degree program with its first cohort of a dozen students. My own electrical engineering degree led to a wonderful career and collaboration with so many. I can only dream what today’s students can do during their lifetimes.
Meet new people; change the world for the better!
Jack Browne is a community activist and former technology engineer, sales and marketing executive at Motorola and other top tech companies.