ARM Institute Celebrates 2024 Class of Champions

Group photo of the ARM Institute 2024 ChampionsARM Institute Recognizes New ARM Champions During 2024 Annual Member Meeting

The ARM Institute Champion Awards celebrate individuals from across the ARM Institute’s 400+ member organization consortium who have gone above and beyond to promote the institute’s mission.

Pittsburgh, PA October 15, 2024 – The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute recently presented several individuals from its member consortium with ARM Champion awards during the institute’s 8th Annual Member Meeting, which took place Sept. 23-25 in Pittsburgh, PA. The ARM Champion Awards recognize ARM Members who have gone above and beyond to advocate for institute’s mission and strengthen U.S. manufacturing. ARM Champions are nominated by their fellow members and the ARM Institute team. The institute’s leadership team selects awardees from the nominations.

The 2024 class of ARM Champions celebrates:

  • Neil Ashbaugh, New Century Careers
  • Gregorio Balandran, Amcor
  • Xu Chen, University of Washington
  • Lisa Fronczek, NIST
  • Frank Henderson, Henderson Sewing
  • Stuart Lawrence, Titan Robotics
  • Scott Lucas, WSU Tech
  • Matt Minner, Catalyst Connection
  • Dijam Panigrahi, GridRaster
  • John Wen, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

“Our member ecosystem is foundational to the success of the ARM Institute,” noted Jay Douglass, ARM Institute Chief Operating Officer, “We are honored to recognize individual members who have gone above and beyond the scope of membership to further our impact and support our nation. On behalf of the ARM Institute team, I’d like to thank our 2024 class of ARM Champions for their continued commitment and congratulate them on this well-deserved recognition.”

Previously awarded ARM Champions include: Corey Adams (Universal Robots), Nihad Alfaysale (former ARM Institute Government Chief Technology Adviser), Juan Aparicio (Reshape Automation), Maria Araujo (formerly of Johnson & Johnson), Clint Chapman (Yaskawa), Roger Christian (Yaskawa), Michel Conklin (Southwest Bots IQ), Laura Evans (Fanuc), Debbie Franklin (Wichita State University), Shane Groves (Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex), SK Gupta (USC/GrayMatter), Greg Hudas (ARM Institute Government Program Manager), Mingu Kang (ARIS Technology), Jeannine Kunz (SME), Changliu Liu (CMU), Dan Mantz (REC Foundation), Carley Mollica (Lockheed Martin), Tom Mudano (AmSkills), Martin Philo (GrayMatter Robotics), Aaron Prather (ASTM), Ritch Ramey (A3 – Association for Advancing Automation), Curtis Richardson (Spirit AeroSystems), Matt Robinson (Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and ROS-Industrial), Ted Rozier (Festo), Eugen Solowjow (Siemens), and Brian Wilson (Duro UAS).

The ARM Champion Awards are presented each year at the ARM Institute’s Annual Member Meeting. This member-exclusive event convenes representatives from across the institute’s consortium for 2.5 days of networking, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing. The 2024 ARM Member Meeting took place September 23-25 in Pittsburgh and marked the institute’s 8th annual Member Meeting. The 2025 Annual Member Meeting is scheduled to take place September 3-5 in Pittsburgh, PA.

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ABOUT THE ARM INSTITUTE 

The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under Agreement Number W911NF-17-3-0004 and is part of the Manufacturing USA® network. The ARM Institute leverages a unique, robust, and diverse ecosystem of 400+ consortium members and partners across industry, academia, and government to make robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence more accessible to U.S. manufacturers large and small, train and empower the manufacturing workforce, strengthen our economy and global competitiveness, and elevate national security and resilience.  Based in Pittsburgh, PA since 2017, with a satellite office in St. Petersburg, FL, the ARM Institute is leading the way to a future where people & robots work together to respond to our nation’s greatest challenges and to produce the world’s most desired products. For more information, visit www.arminstitute.org and follow the ARM Institute on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).