July 21, 2025

Ferris State, BAMF Health, and KISD powering STEM career pipeline to cultivate next-gen talent in West Michigan's rising innovation economy

With Grand Rapids recently named the fastest-growing U.S. city for jobs and new talent by LinkedIn, a partnership between Ferris State University, BAMF Health, and Kent Intermediate School District is preparing high school students from around the region to become its next generation of leaders and innovators.

The second annual FutureSolve initiative gave 26 high school juniors and seniors at schools within the Kent ISD support network the opportunity to dive into real-world problems experienced by BAMF staff and use design thinking principles to help develop solutions.

At the initiative’s culminative event on July 17, student teams presented a window into their six-week experience exploring STEM careers at BAMF, learning about the challenges and opportunities in front of the organization, and developing ideas to advance its cutting-edge work to detect and treat disease.

Founded in 2018, BAMF is transforming the lives of patients facing devastating diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s—including many with conditions considered untreated by U.S. standards—by making the world’s most advanced molecular imaging and therapy accessible and affordable. And with the organization currently operating at only 7% of its service capacity, the potential for growth is immense.

“The need is huge. We have a duty to our patients to be able to offer not just the best scans and therapies available, but the most accessible as well,” said Andy McLean, Manager of External Relations with BAMF Health. “The more urgently we act, the quicker we will get to that bold advanced medical future where patients will go from being on death's door to going back to their daily lives."

FutureSolve 2025 continued a strategic partnership forged between BAMF and Ferris State University in early 2024 to support Michigan’s rapidly expanding theranostics field with homegrown talent. 

The student teams conducted on-the-ground research to develop an in-depth understanding of BAMF’s existing approaches to patient care workflows, marketing, resource management, data systems and security, and talent recruitment and retention. They then worked to identify potential avenues of growth and mapped out strategies to leverage them. 

While BAMF benefitted from students’ fresh perspective and future career potential, the students gained invaluable experience collaborating across knowledge fields, engaging with actual stakeholders, rapidly prototyping solutions, and embracing failure as a learning tool. 

At the same time, the experience helped prepare them for a rapidly shifting job market where adaptability and forward thinking are increasingly critical.

“Working with students on these real-world problems we’re experiencing excites us as an organization, because they are the future,” said McLean. “The person who goes out and creates their future is always going to be ahead of the game, and the jobs that these students are preparing for in five- or six-years' time literally don't exist right now.”

East Grand Rapids High School senior Zack Lewis and his teammates focused on identifying ways for BAMF to elevate the organic marketing potential of its Tik Tok channel. 

After shadowing BAMF staff and getting an inside look at their processes and technology, the students emphasized creating content that could appeal to a broader audience by leaning into the platform’s short-form, trend-based nature to highlight what makes the organization uniquely innovative in a fun and approachable way. 

“I really liked that we got so much hands on experience with our mentors,” Lewis said. “It was very interesting to get to see where the professionals work and what their jobs look like on a day-to-day basis.” 

Another marketing-focused student team was challenged to help BAMF tap into the PR power of prostate cancer awareness month without the use of paid media. 

At first, they envisioned large-scale community events but had to quickly pivot their approach after learning more about how difficult these kinds of resource-intensive events are for an organization of BAMF’s scale to execute in-house. 

The students eventually landed on an idea for BAMF to partner with other local cancer support organizations to invite people to gather in downtown Grand Rapids on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the month and walk a set route together to raise awareness for prostate cancer, relying on physical fliers and organic social media to spread the word. 

“We had to redesign our strategy multiple times because it was a very resource constrained project,” said team member Collin White, a senior at East Grand Rapids High School. “Through that, we learned that perseverance in a project like this is very important. You can’t just give up when things don’t work out the way you expect.”

Other teams attacked equally thorny, systemic challenges. One identified potential risks in BAMF’s current approach to storing and securing patient information and proposed a path toward a more robust and streamlined solution. Another team dug into the new employee onboarding process looking for opportunities to build a stronger and more supportive internal culture. 

Students were even tasked with outlining a budget allocation strategy to help the organization maximize its impact across the research and development, patient care, and marketing aspects of its operations.  

Across all projects, fostering the mental fortitude, critical thinking, and communication skills students need to be effective problem solvers was at the heart of the FutureSolve curriculum. 

“It encourages students to lean into uncertainty and discomfort and to tackle problems that do not have a single solution, or sometimes any clear solution at all,” said Dr. Tom Fox, a chemistry teacher at East Grand Rapids High School who co-created the curriculum alongside East Kentwood High School teacher Elizabeth Young. “Students have to build solutions collaboratively, iteratively, and often imperfectly, and in doing so, they’re honing skills they need to not just thrive in academia, but be curious, resilient, and nuanced thinkers who are open to feedback.” 

Students also gained a leg up in terms of their college careers, earning college credit and getting to leverage the spaces and resources of Ferris State’s Kendall College of Art and Design in downtown Grand Rapids. Participants were enrolled in a three-credit course focused on applied research and problem solving. 

“The future needs more connectors and disruptors who can challenge conventional thinking and build consensus around new and better ways to solve the problems we’re facing at every scale,” said KCAD professor Gayle DeBruyn, who helped mentor students and chairs the college’s BFA program in Collaborative Design. “It was incredible to see how invested students were in the experience, and it’s exciting to think of how they’ll carry it forward into the rest of their education and their careers.”