Rashid Receives Benford Award
As a first year member of the Solar Car Team, Rashid founded the team's first Procurement Division.
The 2006 Harry Benford Award for Entrepreneurial Leadership has been presented to ME alumnus Ahmir Rashid. The award recognizes a student who has exhibited entrepreneurial flair and leadership ability and who has capitalized effectively on the technological and engineering resources available in the College of Engineering.
Even a partial list of Rashid's activities indicates that he has "entrepreneurial flair." His activities with the University of Michigan Solar Car Team and Tau Beta Pi are two of the key reasons he received the honor.
As a first year member of the Solar Car Team in 2000, he founded the team's first Procurement Division to outsource the manufacturing of all the mechanical components on the solar car.
"This was an arduous task," Rashid said, "seeing that everything had to be done for free. However, it was extremely successful. I procured and oversaw the manufacturing of every single mechanical component on the vehicle. As a result of this success, I expanded the division to work on the procurement of an array of other merchandise. For example, I acquired five support vehicles from General Motors, the largest tool set in production from Snap-On, and CNC mills and lathes for our workspace. In all, during my tenure on the team, I personally raised nearly one million dollars in cash and in-kind donations."
In his second year on the team, as Chief Financial Officer, Rashid was responsible for getting the vehicle licensed and insured, no small task.
"I was unable to get the solar car registered in Michigan," Rashid said. "After much searching and working with government officials in different states, I successfully got it licensed in Texas. Then, I thought that it would be a good idea to insure the solar car."
Because there were up to 20 drivers, ages 18 to 24, of the five GM vehicles, Rashid had to work closely with the CoE, U-M Regents and GM to come up with a policy that worked for everyone involved. It turned out to be an excellent idea. When the vehicle was destroyed in a crash, the team was in a real bind.
"I had to have parts for an entirely new vehicle manufactured for free in two weeks," he recalled, "something that had taken two years to do. I successfully convinced many of our sponsors to work on our parts 24 hours a day and turn away paying customers. I also had to file an insurance claim so that we could buy components that were not donated, such as the solar array modules. We were told that it could take six to eight months to get the insurance money, but thanks to everyone involved, we received the money in less than a week."
Ahmir Rashid, Tau Beta Pi
As Vice President of Chapter Relations and Chair of the Industry & Alumni Relations Committee of Tau Beta Pi , Rashid was instrumental in founding the Technical Leadership Corporate Presentation Program. Representatives of upper level management from multiple corporations were invited to make technical presentations to the members.
"This lets students see exactly what engineers actually do on a daily basis at various corporations," said Rashid. The response has been so positive that Rashid was invited to present the program at a recent National Advisory Committee meeting.
Rashid earned both his BSE and MSE degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and finds the field suited his interests perfectly. " The main reason I like mechanical engineering is that I could always see what I was doing, designing, and building," he said. "This helped me immensely in the process of learning and comprehension. For example, if you push a block in one direction along a flat table, it's not going to take off in the other direction."
As expected, he was thrilled to have been named the recipient of the Harry Benford Award. "It's fabulous," he said. "Everyone at the University of Michigan is very intelligent and has a vast array of talents. Thus, it is often hard to stand out. I was honored to have been chosen out of the other highly qualified candidates."
