UIS Professor Emerita Paula Garrott honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award

Paula Garrott, a professor emerita of clinical laboratory science at the University of Illinois Springfield, was recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS) on August 1, 2018, during the organization’s annual meeting in Chicago.

The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes and honors ASCLS members who have “made a difference” in ASCLS and the profession of clinical laboratory science. The award provides special recognition to an individual who has provided dedicated and outstanding service at all levels of the organization over a sustained period of time.

Garrott has been a member of ASCLS for more than 40 years. Since her retirement from UIS, she has continued to be involved in ASCLS as a member of the Government Affairs Committee and has served on several task forces. She is also a past president of the organization.

“I am thrilled and humbled to receive this award,” she said. “It has been an honor and a privilege to work with so many amazing clinical laboratory professionals in an organization that strives for high practice standards and advocates for the medical laboratory profession and its practitioners.”

Garrott taught clinical laboratory sciences classes at UIS for 32 years before retiring from teaching in 2005. She also served as chair of the UIS Clinical Laboratory Sciences Department. Following her retirement from teaching, she served in administrative roles, including as interim associate dean for the UIS College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and interim director of the UIS Natural Science Division.

She holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is certified as a medical laboratory scientist with the American Society for Clinical Pathology.

Garrott was also honored with the ASCLS Illinois Chapter’s Lifetime Achievement Award in April.

UIS MBA student helps the U of I System team finish second in a Chicago business pitch competition

Matt Hutchison, a Metamora resident and MBA student at the University of Illinois Springfield, helped the University of Illinois System's Discovery Partners Institute team finish in second place during the Final Four Pitch Competition hosted by Chicago-based 1871, a non-profit digital startup incubator, on July 31, 2018.

Teams from the University of Illinois System's Discovery Partners Institute, DePaul University’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center along with Michigan State University and Purdue University gathered to pitch their best business startup ideas in a competition similar to the television show Shark Tank.

Each university selected five student teams and each team had a display table to talk about their business idea. Attendees then voted for their favorite business idea from each university. The top team receiving the most votes from each university then competed in a live 5-minute pitch with Q&A from 1871 judges.

Hutchison’s team pitched a company called AddIT, which would match the supply of specialized additive manufacturers around the world with its growing demand. The company would serve as a conduit to both consumers and enterprise in need of unique replacement parts—for old machinery, old buildings, or even new prototypes —with a large, diversified networks of additive manufacturers seeking to timely capitalize on spare capacity.

Hutchison is currently earning his MBA at the UIS Peoria Center while working full-time as a supply chain manager for Caterpillar, Inc.

This is the first time that a UIS student has competed in the Final Four Pitch Competition.