Bill Endres earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1992.  He has been a faculty member since, being at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for seven years and at Michigan Technological University (MTU) since 2001 where he holds a Richard and Elizabeth Henes Endowed Professorship in the Department of Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics.  In 1996 he set out to build a technology company focused on machining simulation software.  With changes in life and profession, that effort was chalked up for a learning experience and set aside.  He later turned his entrepreneurial eye toward developing and commercializing game-changing process and tooling technology/‌hardware in the cutting-tool industry, the domain of his academic research.  To do so, he founded Endres Machining Innovations, LLC (EMI) in 2005.

Turning back to the 1990s and much of the next decade, during which Bill led an active academic research program, his group’s work focused on fundamental cutting mechanics, machine-tool system dynamics, and mechanistic modeling techniques.  The group’s work contributed largely to the fundamental understanding and analysis of the effects of the blunt/‌chamfered/‌honed edge and wear-land found on most real cutting tools.  Another significant aspect of their work was analytical machining dynamics, including mathematical representations for vibration level and stability in the presence of multiple/‌parallel processes, real tooling geometry, periodic time variation, high and ultrahigh speeds, and realistic machine-tool dynamics.

When Bill set out to build EMI the aim was industry-leading R&D complemented by a variety of engineering services.  Through its R&D programs and commercialization partnerships, EMI has developed and delivered, most recently under its Revocut^® brand, innovative tooling products that enable substantial productivity improvements.  The Revocut products and their underlying UltraFeed™ and rotary-insert technologies stand out in high-value processes like finishing and fine-finishing, and in difficult-to-machine materials like titanium, nickel alloys, stainless steels, compacted graphite iron (CGI), and hardened steels.

Bringing his early and continuing commercialization experience back to the academic world, Bill was enlisted in 2009 as the first director of the MTU Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Program.  Having taken a deep dive into intellectual property, the important activity of customer, situational and problem understanding, and multifaceted selling throughout the value realization process, he was called to put his startup experience to practice and to the test.  The call was to develop the program to run as a business to the extent possible within an academic setting and with adherence to and consideration of the academic/‌educational purposes of the program.  In the director role he leads a team of around a dozen dedicated faculty, professional staff, and shop personnel.  With the program team, 35 – 40 year-long projects are secured each year and around 200 students are provided guidance and support as they work in teams toward completing their projects and satisfying their customers.  He has personally advised more than 90 capstone design teams (2005 – 2019; 2021 –) and, since he assumed the director role in 2009, has overseen more than 400 projects/‌teams.  Further exercising his commercialization experience, he served from 2019 – 2021 as a Faculty Fellow for Commercialization with the Vice President for Research Office and continues with targeted support in university commercialization efforts.

Looking ahead Bill seeks to deliver value for others based on his unconventional mix of perspective gained from his fifteen-year field-immersive study and “research” in commercialization engineering, innovation engineering, and the practice of leadership principles.  His time is now largely devoted to coaching others interested in the ultimate end goal of engineering design — that is, the mutual exchange of value, or “value realization” — and/‌or those in the early stages of a MIDACKS leadership journey.  He enjoys doing so both in-person and, toward reaching larger audiences, through his conversational authoring style captured in a pair of design/‌commercialization engineering books and his with Others for Others short-read series of non-engineering leadership books “from the life and mind of an engineering educator and entrepreneur,” all in their latter stages of development.

In parallel with those efforts his entrepreneurial activities continue.  In January, 2022, he co-founded WECE Innovations, LLC with his son for commercializing niche mechanical, electromechanical, and mechatronic products, including at various stages a small-parts inertia measurement device EZ I_Z™, a disposable medical instrument cleaner for use during cardiac surgery, and a device for relieving arm pain for people who are paralyzed due to neurological disorders where their sensory nerves are retained.  In May, 2022, after largely divesting from EMI, he launched Evolvent Leader Development, LLC, which offers a small-group guided leader development series.  That series is aimed initially at young adults in engineering.  In Spring-2023 it was adopted as a for-credit offering to graduate students and select undergraduates and is in process toward future for-credit and no-credit online global campus offerings.

Bill resides in Houghton, Michigan, USA and has three children at various stages of their college education and early careers.

•  May, 2023  •