After devoting two summers to developing the Ford Motor Company's 1994 Mustang, Kristen Morrow '92, Thayer '94 can see the result of her efforts in showrooms across the country.
In the summer of 1992, Ford invited Morrow to join a team of engineers in Dearborn, Michigan charged with the task of adjusting the design of the 1994 Mustang for sale in Japan.
Morrow said she became interested in automotive design after Ford engineer Will Boddie '67, Thayer '69 visited the College in 1992 for the Mustang's public debut at a reception to recruit engineers.
She returned to Ford this summer as the only student engineer on the Mustang design team. The first new model rolled off the assembly line on Oct. 4.
Morrow gained hands-on experience with the vehicles, performing test drives and checking for squeaks and rattles in the cars.
"I drove as a consumer and an engineer," she said.
While Morrow said she cannot take credit for any specific part of the 1994 Mustang, she says she was still excited when she saw the car in a showroom near her Valhalla, NY home.
Morrow said she does not get a complimentary car for her labors, despite her attempts to convince Ford the car needed some "New England college testing."
Ford offered Morrow a job in their Car Programs Management division. She will join the division once she completes her degree in engineering management.
"Kristen is an outstanding person," Boddie said. "We were very impressed."
In 1990, as a junior engineering student, Morrow designed a chair for an engineering class project, which is now being sold to the general public. It was structurally simple yet allowed users greater ease in getting in and out than conventional chairs.
For Morrow, the Mustang project was a dramatic change from her previous smaller ventures in engineering and design.
"I had come from designing this small thing to something so insanely complicated you wonder how it works," Morrow said.
Originally, the chair was designed to be "a Christmas present for my grandmother," Morrow said.
After completing the chair, Morrow started to work on redesigning the product for marketing. Morrow said she currently has a contract with a plant in Enfield, NH to manufacture hand-crafted versions of her chair.
