Thomas Wanke Legacy Fund Receives $30,000 in Donations to Support Fluid Power Education

Thomas Wanke was a monumental figure in fluid power, active for more than 50 years and influencing generations of fluid power engineers through his work at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, its Fluid Power Institute, and with the National Fluid Power Association. To honor his memory, and to help ensure that his positive impact on fluid power education continues to be felt, the NFPA Education and Technology Foundation now administers the Thomas Wanke Legacy Fund, a dedicated funding mechanism that will support fluid power scholarships and education activities at universities throughout the United States.

Since making this announcement, Tom’s many friends, former students, and colleagues have responded with their generosity, with total donations to the fund, at the time of this writing, now exceeding $30,000. One significant milestone associated with that figure is that it qualifies for the maximum matching gift of $25,000 that was pledged by the National Fluid Power Association – meaning that the fund now has more than $55,000 to use in supporting fluid power education.

Additional donations are welcome and still being accepted at this link.

Through a series of annual awards from this fund, we will be able to increase both the number of students studying fluid power, and also the quality of fluid power education in our nation’s universities – two goals clearly aligned with and ennobled by Tom’s life and legacy.

Recent Posts

Track Your Markets with NFPA’s Econ and Market Indicators (EMI) Report

NFPA’s Econ and Market Indicators (EMI) has been updated with January data. The EMI contains public data in the forms of shipments, orders, industrial production, capacity utilization, and producer price indexes for a variety of popular fluid power customer markets. The EMI can be downloaded as an excel file which gives members access to the…

Read More about Track Your Markets with NFPA’s Econ and Market Indicators (EMI) Report

Call for Volunteers: NFPA Technology Task Force Collaborative Projects

The NFPA Technology Roadmap identified a number of machine-level technology trends that are actively shaping the future of the fluid power industry. These trends include the increasing electrification, connectivity, and autonomous functionality of both the mobile and industrial machines that use fluid power in their power or control systems. To better understand these trends, and…

Read More about Call for Volunteers: NFPA Technology Task Force Collaborative Projects

NFPA Launches New Membership Category for Controls, IoT, and Data Companies

NFPA is the trade association for the entire fluid power industry, whose technology is rapidly evolving to increasingly rely on electronic control systems and integrations with sensors, data capture and analytic functions. Companies manufacturing these products and providing these services have long been included in NFPA’s Manufacturer and Supplier membership types, but now, in order…

Read More about NFPA Launches New Membership Category for Controls, IoT, and Data Companies