The White House Water Summit on March 22 addressed global water issues and focused attention on the vital work being done by such innovative companies as FloDesign Sonics. Jason Dionne ’07/G’15, a founding engineer at the company, is pictured on the left with U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith. FloDesign Sonics is based in Wilbraham MA and is headed by chairman and CEO Stan Kowalski III ’92. The engineering company specializes in applying aerospace technology designs to a wide range of products.
In 1992 the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded FloDesign Sonics a grant resulting in “a technology that provides a green, sustainable, and environmentally friendly oil water separation system for the oil and gas industry,” according to Bart Lipkens, chief technology officer at the company and a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Western New England University.
Dionne, who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering at the University—graduating summa cum laude both times—said that the opportunity to participate in the White House Water Summit (pictured below) is both an acknowledgement of FloDesign Sonics’ revolutionary contributions to the vital work of improving access to clean water. “Presenting at the White House further solidifies a long relationship with the National Science Foundation,” he said. “The NSF not only acted as our first substantial means of outside funding, but also gave FloDesign Sonics its first stamp of approval. I see the National Science Foundation as the initial catalyst for the rapid growth of FloDesign Sonics.”
Prakash Balan, program director for NSF Small Business Innovation Research Funding, said that FloDesign Sonics’ oil water separation system “represents a significant step forward in the use of acoustic waves as an efficient and elegant way to achieve challenging separations in a broad spectrum of manufacturing and production processes.”
FloDesign Sonics is a spinoff of FloDesign, a company that has included dozens of Western New England University graduates as full-time employees, students as interns, and professors as consultants.
