Engineering a rewarding life: Karen (‘71) and Milt Hendricks

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by Wenda Williamson

In 1966, disillusioned pre-med student Karen (Lafferty) Hendricks had never even thought of chemical engineering. But when a friend suggested it as an option, she “marched right into Dr. Syverson’s office and said, ‘I’m going to become an engineer!’”

The former high school valedictorian met her match in the rigorous ChemE program, but stayed motivated because she thought, ‘If I do this, there will be a payoff in the end.’

Karen excelled and blossomed as a ChemE student. Having come from a small town (Shelby, OH), she feels indebted to Ohio State because “it opened up a world and set me on a really life-changing course.”

Milt and Karen Hendricks
At her 1971 graduation, Karen was one of 13 students out of about 7,000 who were honored as “Outstanding Graduating Seniors.” She went on to enjoy a successful career with executive roles at Procter & Gamble (where she met husband Milt, a now-retired R&D manager) and the Dial Corporation. She retired as chairman, president, and CEO of the Baldwin Piano & Organ Company in 2001.

Even after Karen began her career, her ties to Ohio State grew. In 1983, she was elected to serve on the OSU Alumni Board of Directors. “I really enjoyed that, and gained a network of like-minded alums,” she said. Governor Taft later asked her to serve on the Board of Trustees, and she received several awards for service to alma mater.

Two years ago, Karen and Milt made a gift to name the Unit Operations Student Lounge in the new Koffolt Labs complex. “Much of the success of ChemE alums is attributable to this department, and it deserves better facilities,” Karen said. “It’s becoming impossible to train engineers of the future in the old building, because it is obsolete. The new building will be a much better learning environment.”

Although Milt and Karen feel it is important to support the new building, they recently realized that their passion is to help students like themselves. This is why they’ve reconfigured the scholarship they set up in 1999 to make it a “transformational” award to predominantly support one recipient.

Scholarships enabled Milt to attend college at Lehigh University, and the motivation Karen felt as a scholarship recipient is also very important to her.

The Hendricks scholarship has similar meaning for current recipients. Madeline Shirk, a senior in Ohio State’s William G. Lowrie Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering program, said, “It’s motivational because here are people who don’t really know who I am, yet they think it is worth investing in my education and demonstrating faith in my potential and future. The least I can do is to pay them back by working hard in school. It also gives me time to get involved in activities where I can build my leadership skills.”

Supporting the development of leadership skills is one of the goals of the Hendricks scholarship because “engineers with ‘people skills’ are the ones who can maximize their professional contributions and success,” Karen explains.  

To Milt and Karen, philanthropy is a matter of ‘giving back.’  “We got good educations and feel truly blessed with where we are in our lives. We don’t need more ‘stuff.’ We are trying to live out our values by how we spend our time and money,” Karen said. “We get a lot of enjoyment from traveling, and seeing the fruits of our philanthropic efforts. It feels good when we give according to our values and conscience – like we’re doing the right thing,” she added. Milt agreed. “Money is man’s personal energy in portable form. It can go places and serve lives in ways you may never know,” he said.

Madeline Shirk would certainly agree. “One day, I hope to be able to help someone else in the same way, because I know it has affected me and given me opportunities. Investing in young engineers is simply an awesome thing to do,” she said, smiling.

Categories: AlumniStudents