Four University of Cincinnati Cooperative Education Students win L Oreal Competition

Four University of Cincinnati students capped off their summer co-op by winning a national innovation competition hosted by their employer,

L’Oreal

.  During the

co-op

term, Ray Cook, Gina Gianfagna, Stephanie Horvath, and Ryan Thomas from the

College of Engineering and Applied Science

worked as a team and participated in L’Oreal’s Intern Out of the Box Beauty Shakers Competition.  The competition included 150 co-op students and interns. Teams were challenged to come up with a project that was out of the box, sustainable and excellent.

The key goals of the competition were:

1. To provide interns/co-ops with the opportunity to innovate
2. To promote the importance of teamwork in L’Oreal USA and allow them to work collaboratively on the next big innovation in the industry
3. To drive passion and creativity among interns/co-ops with the opportunity to effectively communicate their ideas to a senior audience

The University of Cincinnati team was one of three teams selected as finalists in the competition. Finalists were flown out to NYC to present their idea to the L'Oreal Corporate Human Resources team, as well as Jerome Tixier, executive vice-president of Human Resources L'Oreal Worldwide.

The team’s winning idea was to make L’Oreal’s manufacturing and distribution facilities more sustainable by capturing the lost mechanical energy that occurs during the braking of L’Oreal’s systems in its global manufacturing facilities and distribution centers. Hydraulic regenerative braking is currently being studied and used in the automotive industry to take hybrid vehicles to the next level. The team wanted to adapt the work that EPA, Eaton Corporation, Chrysler and UPS have done. According to Ray Cook, biomedical engineering student, this could be used on the motors and pumps on processing, packaging and other equipment as well as the forklifts and Automatic Guided Vehicles at any L’Oreal facility.

When asked what the most challenging part of the project was, the team agreed working and communicating across three different L'Oreal facilities to bring this project together was the most difficult part of the assignment. Although working as a team across different L’Oreal facilities was a challenge, the team saw the experience as rewarding.

“Through the partnerships that UC has with companies across the world, students have the opportunity to use their determination and drive to take their professional careers as far as they want before they graduate. The sky is the limit,” stated Ray Cook.

Christi Gordon, L’Oreal co-op partner, is incredibly proud of Ray, Gina, Stephanie and Ryan. “I am proud of their accomplishment in winning the competition, but I am perhaps even more proud of the way in which they won. These four students worked together across three different L'Oreal USA locations across the country. They remained passionate and committed to their idea even when they realized their original model wasn't feasible. They did not get discouraged. They went back to the drawing board and exhibited tremendous teamwork, open communication, and a passion and belief in their idea. They were not afraid to challenge each other respectfully to come up with the best model and presentation of their idea. These are all key values of the L'Oreal organization, and I was so pleased to see our co-op students reflecting these values. Their graciousness and humble attitudes after finding out they won the entire competition is admirable. They freely gave credit and thanks to all who supported and coached them throughout the process,” stated Christi.

All four of the students highly recommended UC's Cooperative Education Program to prospective students looking to set themselves apart from their peers.

“The program allows you to learn many things that you can't learn in a classroom. Anyone who has completed a co-op, whether they liked their position or not, can tell you they learned something valuable. I am graduating with diverse work experience and am prepared to start my career. The valuable contacts I've made have opened doors to future work opportunities that could only be made possible with the UC co-op program,” stated Gina Gianfagna, Chemical Engineering student.

When asked to reflect on UC’s co-op program from an employer standpoint, Christi expressed that “UC’s co-op program provides students with invaluable, hands-on, real world experience. It provides the opportunity for students to experience the possibilities that lay ahead for them upon graduation. As an organization, L'Oreal USA understands the value in that for students and wants to contribute to their professional development. We've had such positive experiences with UC co-ops in terms of the contributions so many of them have made to our operation over the years. Above and beyond this, the UC co-op program has served as a very successful pipeline for future L'Oreal talent across the country for 15-plus years.”