Blair de Verteuil, Sc’01, has said it again and again: as Disney is to animators, ATS is to mechatronic engineers.
“Obviously I’m biased, but I believe we have the best people in the industry,” says the company’s president of Life Sciences Systems.
Increasingly, those people include Smith Engineering students and alumni.
Although ATS is headquartered in Cambridge, Ontario, it has over 7,700 employees working at more than 65 manufacturing facilities and 85 offices around the world. Since its launch in 1978, it has become an industry-leading designer and builder of manufacturing automation systems for many of the world’s top companies.
Right now, more than 25 ATS employees are Queen’s alumni, and every year the company adds Smith Engineering interns to its mix through its support of the Engineering Career Accelerator Program and the Queen’s Undergraduate Internship Program.
Those numbers are set to soon grow.
In October, ATS opened a 10,000-square-foot facility in Kingston near Highway 401 and Gardiners Road. Called the Kingston Innovation Centre (KIC), it’s dedicated to the innovation of a specific technology the company is advancing.
“I was a big advocate for the KIC,” says de Verteuil. “I knew the student talent we could get and the collaborations we could have with Smith Engineering. So, we’re really excited about continuing to build on this partnership.”
ATS has been welcoming Smith Engineering interns for the past eight years. Most of them have worked out of the company’s 500,000-square-foot campus in Cambridge for internships spanning 12 to 16 months.
From day one, interns work on real-world problems alongside automation designers. That usually means designing high-speed production lines that manufacture everything from contact lenses to insulin pumps to glucose monitoring devices. Tasks could include 3D design with SolidWorks, pneumatic actuator sizing, structural design, motion simulations and more.
“It’s a playground here,” says de Verteuil. “And you can find where you fit whether you’re a controls engineer, more mechanically inclined, or if you’re more multi-disciplined.”
It’s a “dynamic and exciting” place to go to work every day, he adds.
“We’re a project-based business, so you get to work on something different every six months to a year. That’s super cool and it’s a big part of what’s kept me working here.”
As for what keeps ATS hiring Smith Engineering interns, de Verteuil says students come well-equipped with strong technical skills and great hands-on experience.
The company is focused on mechatronics, so they usually hire mechanical engineering students, but they do like to see multi-disciplinary knowledge, including in areas like electrical and coding.
“I want to see the academic performance, but more so I want to see the extracurricular behaviour — the student projects, the design teams,” says de Verteuil. “That gives you those real-world, innovative, entrepreneurial skills we value.”
If ATS can get that right mix of skillsets — which they usually do, says de Verteuil — it’s mutually beneficial for both ATS and Smith Engineering interns.
For interns, they get exposure to a wide range of customers, industry-leading technologies, and smart, capable co-workers, says de Verteuil.
For ATS, they not only get to evaluate candidates for full-time employment after internships, but they get the young, ambitious energy that students bring to the worksite.
“We like their fresh ideas,” says de Verteuil. “It’s that bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eagerness to learn. And human nature is such that you’re eager to mentor when you see that kind of curiosity.”
Now that the KIC is up and running, de Verteuil says he and ATS can’t wait to see more of that curiosity from Smith Engineering students and alumni.
He and others from ATS were there at the KIC ribbon-cutting ceremony in October alongside Smith Engineering staff, students, and alumni. The ATS team dropped by Ritual to connect with students, as well.
“None of that was unintentional,” says de Verteuil.
“We wanted to be there as alumni to tell engineering students our story and hear theirs. We want Smith Engineering’s best students, and we want to keep building environments where tinkerers and mechatronics enthusiasts thrive. So we’re going to keep growing our Kingston presence and keep strengthening our partnership with Smith Engineering.”
This article is relevant to the following Strategic Actions as defined in the Strategic Plan:
