By coming to MSOE, William Edstrom Jr. ’84 was able to combine his passion for music with a career in engineering.

“In high school I was interested in music, guitars and sound reinforcement,” he said. His interest in audio gear is the reason he chose to major in electrical engineering at MSOE. “I always wanted to understand how electronic devices were designed.”

Edstrom enrolled at the height of microcomputers emerging into the market. “This was pre-internet and when PCs just started to become available. I was fascinated by programming and wrote all kinds of scripts on Hewlett-Packard HP41 devices,” he said.

One of his most memorable moments as a student was an introductory programming class.

“The class was done in Fortran using a teletype terminal available on the lower level of Margaret Loock Hall (MLH). Shortly after, computers started appearing in dorm rooms—IMSAI, Apple and Radio Shack.  Several of us became obsessed with programming. I learned as much from my classmates as I did inside the classroom.”

Edstrom graduated from MSOE with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1984 and started working for an area controls company then eventually joining his family’s manufacturing company Edstrom Industries (since sold and renamed Avidity Science). He continued his education and graduated from Harvard Business School in 2002. At Edstrom Industries, he worked in a full range of roles including board of directors, executive management, CTO, research & design management and as a design engineer. 

Today, he owns Forums for Family Business which he runs through his company, Edstrom Consulting Group. In this role he facilitates monthly peer roundtable meetings for successors in multi-generational family businesses.

He also never gave up his passion for music and sound engineering. Over the past decade, he has worked on writing and producing educational materials related to sound engineering. To date, he has created 20 video series on audio engineering and has written and published audio production books Studio One for Engineers and Producers and The Power in Cakewalk SONAR.

He stays very connected to MSOE by serving on the MSOE Board of Regents. “There are few schools that can educate students in a way that prepares them to contribute meaningfully and earn a good salary. It’s exciting to see so many of these graduates start their own business and employ hundreds. I’m so impressed and proud of how far MSOE has come since I was a student.”