QUEST Celebrates 15 Years of Excellence at
Annual Brumberger Innovation & Consulting Conference

More than 250 people packed Van Munching Hall’s Frank Auditorium to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Smith School’s undergraduate Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams (QUEST) Honors Fellows Program and take part in the program’s annual Brumberger Innovation and Consulting Conference, held the evening of Dec. 4, 2008. Named for 2007 alumnus Matthew Brumberger whose financial support sustains conference, the event showcases student consulting projects for corporate and nonprofit clients, faculty, parents and peers. 

J. Gerald Suarez, associate dean for external strategy and executive director of QUEST, praised the students for their outstanding work and encouraged them to use their passions and what they’ve learned in QUEST as a launching pad.
 
“I encourage you to continually dream large, dream with responsibility and use what you know, use what you’ve learned here in QUEST not just to make a living, but to do all the good you can out there, to make a difference, to make a contribution,” Suarez said.
 
Most of the projects presented at the event are the capstone of the QUEST program for university seniors and the culmination of a semester of work. QUEST, one of the Smith Schools specialized Undergraduate Fellows programs, admits students from the Smith School, the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences.
 
Student teams worked on 15 consulting projects for 10 companies and organizations, ranging from University of Maryland units to corporations in engineering and homebuilding. The projects gave the companies a chance to see some of the school’s best students in action and gain valuable business solutions, while giving students the opportunity to work with real-life executives on real-life organizational problems.
 
All the groups set up storyboard displays in Van Munching Hall’s first-floor Pownall Atrium, then presented 10-minute overviews of their projects in breakout sessions. Teams delivered a synopsis of their project, described their methodology, how they conducted benchmarking and key recommendations.
 
The conference concluded with the presentation of the 2008 “Project of the Year” award. This year for the first time two groups were honored with the award: a team that came up with sustainable waste management solutions for Winchester Homes, and a team that created their own social impact project to collect donations to support children in orphanages in Ukraine. Both winning teams delivered encore presentations of their projects.
 
Many of the groups are invited to deliver their presentations for clients on-site after the conference, and some students have reported receiving job offers from client companies in the past. Several companies have forged strong relationships with the QUEST program and continue to participate in contracting student teams for projects each year.
 
More information about the QUEST program, along with a special 15th Anniversary video and brochure, can be found at: www.rhsmith.umd.edu/quest/anniversary

Carrie Handwerker, Office of Marketing Communications