Trine University holds a special place in the hearts of Jenny (Jackemeyer) Krupp and Lucas Krupp, and not just because they met at the university.
“We are so thankful for the education and life lessons we were taught,” said Lucas. “We will forever be grateful for our time there!”
The 2016 chemical engineering graduates both work at the Elanco Animal Health’s facility in Clinton, Indiana. The company produces medicines, vaccinations and feed to enhance the health of pets and livestock.
Jenny is a site validation coordinator within Elanco’s Technical Services/Manufacturing Sciences group.
“Essentially, I oversee our validation program, which ensures all our processes repeatedly reproduce quality product,” she said.
"All of my professors being extremely picky about turning in professional-looking work has been extremely helpful in me being successful in my current role."- Jenny (Jackemeyer) Krupp
Lucas is a front-line engineer in the company’s Process Engineering group, where he works with the final processing and packaging of animal feed products.
“I oversee five processes, along with another engineer and process team members, that operate 24/7 for the entire year,” he said.
Both enjoyed chemistry in high school. Jenny said her Type 1 diabetes gave her an interest in medical research, but the normal medical school or pharmacy tracks weren’t appealing. She discovered that she could work within the pharmaceutical industry with a chemical engineering degree.
Lucas said he was “blown away” by the many options within chemical engineering.
“It is such a broad field that allows for growth in just about any industry you could have interest in,” he said.
Jenny’s great-uncle and father both graduated from what was then Tri-State, but originally she didn’t want to follow in her dad’s footsteps and go to Trine.
“I wanted to blaze my own trail, but everyone I interacted with the day of my tour went above and beyond to make sure I got my questions answered,” she recalled. “By the time I left that day, I knew Trine was where I belonged.”
Lucas, who was looking at schools of all sizes, also was attracted by the personal attention at Trine. He noted that professors would say hello by name to any students who happened to walk by.
The pair started to get to know each other when they became part of a four-person chemical engineering study group their sophomore year. Jenny recalled that she and Lucas ended up talking a lot while working on a particularly hard lab report over Spring Break.
“At this point, I started to realize I really enjoyed spending time with Jenny,” Lucas said. “Eventually, I used the amazing, creative pick-up line of ‘Hey, would you like to go out and do something other homework for once?’ ”
The couple got engaged right before the end of their senior year and were married in October 2017. Their two other study partners were both part of the wedding.
While students, they both interviewed for an internship at Elanco, with Jenny getting the nod. After she graduated from Trine, the company hired her full-time into a front-line process engineering role supporting its flexible manufacturing building, which had several new products come in while she was there.
“I had the opportunity to see the validation process firsthand, which allowed me to transition into the validation coordinator role pretty easily,” she said.
After Jenny received the offer from Elanco, Lucas began looking for work in the Terre Haute, Indiana, area where Elanco is located. He started his career by working for two years as a plant/process engineer at a small chemical company called DynaChem, Inc., before taking a position that opened up at Elanco.
Jenny said the ability at Trine to become involved with multiple organizations helped her learn how to coordinate and juggle priorities, which is a big part of her work now.
“Also, I never thought that all the lab reports that we had to write with such precision was teaching me anything other than the topic that we were writing about,” she said. “Turns out, all of my professors being extremely picky about turning in professional-looking work has been extremely helpful in me being successful in my current role.”
“I remember that I hated randomly assigned group projects, or group homework submittals where only one set of answers were turned in,” Lucas said. “However, I now see those were all just intended as slight pushes to what you deal with in industry.”
