Building for the future
A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Sept. 23, 2022, marking the beginning of construction on the new Therkildsen Industrial Engineering building. (Left to right) Landon Getting, Graduate Student, Industrial Engineering; Larissa Holtmyer Jones, President and CEO, Iowa State University Foundation; Wendy Wintersteen, President, Iowa State University; Joyce A. McEwen Therkildsen, ’59 Zoology and Physical Education; C.G. “Turk” A. Therkildsen, ’59 Industrial Engineering; Sarah Ryan, C.G. “Turk” and Joyce A. Therkildsen Department Chair; W. Samuel Easterling, James L. and Katherine S. Melsa Dean of the College of Engineering.
Industrial engineering has a long and proud history at Iowa State. This gift and the new facility it will provide will ensure IMSE remains a top-ranked program and a premier destination for students, faculty and staff for generations to come.
Wendy Wintersteen
Iowa State University President
Serving as the new home of Iowa State University’s Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, the Therkildsen Industrial Engineering building will provide enhanced research laboratories and learning spaces where industrial engineering students can gain the knowledge to design innovative, nimble and intelligent processes.
The building project will offer nearly 80,000 gross square feet of space located southwest of Howe Hall on the Iowa State campus and will be designed to complement the current aesthetics of the university’s engineering corridor. It will feature an advanced manufacturing laboratory to train engineers for the Industry 4.0 era, a human factors and ergonomics teaching and research laboratory and a data-intensive engineering analysis and visualization laboratory for teaching and research.
The facility is named in honor of Iowa State graduates C.G. “Turk” and Joyce A. McEwen Therkildsen. Their $42 million lead gift for the facility is the largest gift for an academic building at Iowa State University.