BIG RAPIDS – Joseph S. Mikols of Paris, Ferris State University professor emeritus,
was appointed as a director to the Ferris Foundation Board of Directors. The Ferris
State University Board of Trustees approved his appointment during the board’s regular
meeting Friday, Nov. 7.
Graduating from Midland High School in 1961, he attended Michigan Technological University to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. After college, he joined the Peace Corps and taught high school math and science courses in Kumba, West Cameroon, Africa, from 1965-67.
He returned to the United States and worked for Dow Chemical in Midland in the Welding Engineering department for four years and, in 1972, he left Dow to pursue his master’s degree in Welding Engineering, which he received in 1973 from The Ohio State University.
He then went on to work for Townsend and Bottum, a power plant construction company in Ann Arbor, where he was the chief metallurgist/welding engineer from 1973 to 1986.
In 1986, he came to Ferris State University and was an associate professor of Welding Engineering Technology until his retirement in 2000. Mikols also has done welding consulting for industry during and after his time at Ferris.
He is a member of the American Welding Society and past member of the American Society for Metals. He received the American Welding Society Adams Memorial Membership Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1992. He also served as the section chairman, vice chairman and on the section scholarship committee of the American Welding Society.
He lives in Paris with his wife, Linda, who is a professor at Michigan State University in Lansing.