Milwaukee School of Engineering’s (MSOE) Fall Commencement will be held Saturday, Nov. 17, at the Kern Center. About 80 undergraduate and graduate students in engineering majors, the Rader School of Business and School of Nursing will receive their bachelor’s or master’s degrees.  

MSOE Regent Mark Train, retired president and CEO of Jason Inc., will receive an Honorary Doctor of Business and Economics degree.  

Andrew Winston, of Bayside, Wisconsin, is the class respondent. Winston is graduating with high honors and will receive a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering.  

Kevin Banks Jr., of Chicago, will receive the Alumni Association Award. Recipients of this prestigious award are first nominated by faculty members in their respective academic departments and then the entire graduating class selects from among its peers the student who is most deserving. Banks will receive a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering.  

About Mark Train

MSOE Regent Mark Train co-founded Jason Inc. in 1985, and retired in 2005 as the president and CEO. Train’s entrepreneurial spirit led him from a career as an accountant to heading his own company of 3,000 employees.  

Train, a New York native, earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1963 from Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. and went to work for what is now Ernst & Young in New York. There he was exposed to different companies and industries, especially manufacturing. The CPA found himself more interested in his clients’ issues than the business of an accounting firm, so he joined one of his clients, AMCA International, when the opportunity arose. A decade later, Train was senior vice president of finance at AMCA and was in charge of divesting some of AMCA’s companies. This is when he and colleague Vince Martin made the decision to purchase the companies that would become Jason Inc. and he and his family moved to the Milwaukee area.  

The company grew from $70 million in sales to more than $500 million. Martin and Train had more than 3,000 employees under their leadership. Train retired after 20 years with the company, most recently as president and CEO. Today, Jason Inc. is a globally diversified company comprised of four distinct manufacturing businesses committed to delivering best-in-class products that serve the finishing, seating, components and acoustics markets. Several MSOE graduates are employed at Jason companies as designers and engineers, and current students participate in an internship program.  

In 2002, Train joined the MSOE Board of Regents. For the past four years, he has been chairman of the MSOE Audit and Finance Committee and is active on other MSOE committees. He is currently on the Board of Directors of Sargento Foods Inc., Hatco Corporation and Dalco Metals Inc. For the last 20 years he has been active with the Muscular Dystrophy Association and in 2017 was the recipient of the MDA Personal Freedom Award.