Kim Kallstrom, 35

Coordinator II/Program Administrator, The Reliability and Maintainability Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Years at The Reliability and Maintainability Center:  7

Education: BA Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Boston University; MS Administration—Logistics Management, Georgia College and State University

Kim’s contributions

“Kim is the program administrator for the Reliability and Maintainability Center (RMC), an industry-supported center within UT’s College of Engineering,” said Klaus Blache, center director at the RMC. “She has been associated with the RMC for several years in various roles, such as reliability and maintainability (R+M) internship coordinator and chairman for the annual conference. Kim’s experience with real-world maintenance situations as a former lean consultant and aircraft maintenance officer (USAF) makes her a perfect fit for the RMC. With an ongoing combination of training, placing students in R+M internships, research projects, benchmarking studies, and conferences/member meetings, it is critical to have the right person managing day-to-day activities.”

Why a career in manufacturing?

“My career allows me to impact manufacturing daily. By matching interns with our member companies, I am securing the future of manufacturing by ensuring that the incoming workforce has the skills needed to hit the ground running. Through RMC training, I get to help keep the existing manufacturing workforce current. As the Maintenance and Reliability Conference (MARCON) coordinator, I get to bring together reliability and maintenance professionals in manufacturing and other disciplines to benchmark one another and share lessons learned and new technology. World-class companies need world-class R+M, and I get to help companies achieve that success.”